A Circus of Hells Read online

  “You sure kept me waiting,” Ammon hedged. “Cost me extra, trying to find out what’d happened and recruit somebody else. I ought to charge the cost to your payment. Right?”

  “The delay wasn’t my fault. You should have given your agent better protection, or remuneration such that she had no incentive to visit persons to whom she’d not been introduced.” Flandry buffed fingernails on tunic and regarded them critically. “You have what you contracted for, a report on Wayland, favorable at that.”

  “But you said the secret’s been spilled. The Merseians—”

  “My friend Ydwyr the Seeker assures me he’ll keep silence. The rest of whatever personnel on Talwin have heard about the Mimirian System will shortly be dispersed. In any event, why should they mention a thing that can help Terra? Oh, rumors may float around, but you only need five or ten years’ concealment and communication is poor enough to guarantee you that.” Flandry reached for a cigarette. Having shed the addiction in these past months, he was enjoying its return. “Admittedly,” he said, “if I release Ydwyr from his promise, he may well chance to pass this interesting item—complete with coordinates—on to the captain of whatever Imperial ship arrives to look his camp over.”

  Ammon barked a laugh. “I expected a response from you, Dominic. You’re a sharp-edge boy.” He stroked his chins. “You thought about maybe resigning your commission? I could use a sharp-edge boy. You know I pay good. Right?”

  “I’ll know that when I’ve counted the bundle,” Flandry said. He inhaled the tobacco into lighting and rolled smoke around his palate.

  The gross bulk wallowed forward in its chair. The bald countenance hardened. “What about the agent who got to Djana?” Ammon demanded. “And what about her?”

  “Ah, yes,” Flandry answered. “You owe her a tidy bit, you realize.”

  “What? After she—”

  “After she, having been trapped because of your misguided sense of economy, obtained for you the information that you’ve been infiltrated, yes, dear heart, you are in her debt.” Flandry smiled like a tiger. “Naturally, I didn’t mention the incident in my official report. I can always put my corps on the trail of those Merseian agents without compromising myself, as for example by sending an anonymous tip. However, I felt you might prefer to deal with them yourself. Among other inducements, they’ve probably also corrupted members of your esteemed competitor associations. You might well obtain facts useful in your business relationships. I’m confident your interrogators are persuasive.”

  “They are,” Ammon said. “Who is the spy?”

  Djana started to speak. Flandry forestalled her with a reminding gesture. “The information is the property of this young lady. She’s willing to negotiate terms for its transfer. I am her agent.”

  Sweat studded Ammon’s visage. “Pay her—when she tried to sell me out?”

  “My client Djana will be leaving Irumclaw by the first available ship. Incidentally, I’m booking passage on the same one. She needs funds for her ticket, plus a reasonable stake at her destination, whatever it may be.”

  Ammon spat a vileness. The Gorzunian sensed rage and bunched his shaggy body for attack.

  Flandry streamed smoke out his nose. “As her agent,” he went mildly on, “I’ve taken the normal precautions to assure that any actions to her detriment will prove unprofitable. You may as well relax and enjoy this, Leon. It’ll be expensive at best, and the rate goes up if you use too much of our valuable time. I repeat, you can take an adequate return out of the hide of that master spy, when you’ve purchased the name.”

  Ammon waved his goon back. Hatred thickening his voice, he settled down to dicker.

  No liners plied this far out. The Cha-Rina was a tramp freighter with a few extra accommodations modifiable for various races. She offered little in the way of luxuries. Flandry and Djana brought along what pleasant items they were able to find in Old Town’s stores. No other humans were aboard, and apart from the skipper, who spent her free hours in the composition of a caterwauling sonata, the Cynthian crew spoke scant Anglic. So they had privacy.

  Their first few days of travel were pure hedonism. To sleep out the nightwatch, lie abed till the clock said noon, loaf about and eat, drink, read, watch a projected show, play handball, listen to music, make love in comfort—before everything else, to have no dangers and no duties—seemed ample splendor. But the ship approached Ysabeau, itself richly endowed with cities and a transfer point for everywhere else in the bustling impersonal vastness of the Empire; and they had said nothing yet about the future.

  “Captain’s dinner,” Flandry decreed. While he stood over the cook, and ended preparing most of the delicacies himself, Djana ornamented their cabin with what cloths and furs she could find. Thereafter she spent a long while ornamenting herself. For dress she chose the thinnest, fluffiest blue gown she owned. Flandry returned, slipped into red-and-gold mufti, and popped the cork on the first champagne bottle.

  They dined, and drank, and chatted, and laughed through a couple of hours. He pretended not to see that she was forcing her mirth. The moment when he must notice came soon enough.

  He poured brandy, lounged back, sniffed and sipped. “Aahh! Almost as tasty as you, my love.”

  She regarded him across the tiny, white-clothed table. Behind her a viewscreen gave on crystal dark and a magnificence of stars. The ship shivered and hummed ever so faintly, the air was fragrant with odors from the cleared-away dishes, and with the perfume she had chosen. Her great eyes fell to rest and he could not dip his own from them.

  “You use that word a lot,” she said, quiet-voiced. “Love.”

  “Appropriate, isn’t it?” Uneasiness tugged at him.

  “Is it? What do you intend to do, Nicky?”

  “Why…make a dummy trip to ‘claim my inheritance.’ Not that anybody’d check on me especially, but it’s an excuse to play tourist. When my leave’s up, I report to Terra, no less, for the next assignment. I daresay somebody in a lofty echelon has gotten word about the Talwin affair and wants to talk to me—which won’t hurt the old career a bit, eh?”

  “You’ve told me that before. You know it’s not what I meant. Why have you never said anything about us?”

  He reached for a cigarette while taking a fresh swallow of brandy. “I have, I have,” he countered, smiling hard. “With a substantial sum in your purse, you should do well if you make the investments I suggested. They’ll buy you a peaceful life on a congenial planet; or, if you prefer to shoot for larger stakes, they’ll get you entry into at least the cellars of the haut monde. ”

  She bit her lip. “I’ve been dreading this,” she said.

  “Hey? Uh, you may’ve had a trifle more than optimum to drink, Djana. I’ll ring for coffee.”

  “No.” She clenched fingers about the stem of her glass, raised it and tossed off the contents in a gulp. Setting it down: “Yes,” she said, “I did kind of guzzle tonight. On purpose. You see, I had to form the habit of not thinking past any time when I was feeling good, because knowing a bad time was sure to come, I’d spoil the good time. A…an inhibition. Ydwyr taught me how to order my inhibitions out of my way, but I didn’t want to use any stunt of that bastard’s—”

  “He’s not a bad bastard. I’ve grown positively fond of him.”

  “—and besides, I wanted to pull every trick in my bag on you, and for that I needed to be happy, really happy. Well, tonight’s my last chance. Oh, I suppose I could stay around a while—”

  “I wouldn’t advise it,” Flandry said in haste. He’d been looking forward to searching for variety in the fleshpots of the Empire. “I’ll be too peripatetic.”

  Djana shoved her glass toward him. He poured, a clear gurgle in a silence where, through the humming, he could hear her breathe.

  “Uh-huh,” she said. “I had to know tonight. That’s why I got a touch looped, to help me ask.” She lifted the glass. Her gaze stayed on his
while she drank. Stars made a frosty coronet for her hair. When she had finished, she was not flushed. “I’ll speak straight,” she said. “I thought…we made a good pair, Nicky, didn’t we, once things got straightened out?…I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask if you’d like to keep on. No, wait, I don’t have any notions about me as an agent. But I could be there whenever you got back.”

  Well, let’s get it over with. Flandry laid a hand on one of hers. “You honor me beyond my worth, dear,” he said. “It isn’t possible—”

  “I supposed not.” Had Ydwyr taught her that instant steely calm? “You’d never forget what I’ve been.”

  “I assure you, I’m no prude. But—”

  “I mean my turnings, my treasons…Oh, let’s forget I spoke, Nicky, darling. It was just a hope. I’ll be fine. Let’s enjoy our evening together; and maybe, you know, maybe sometime we’ll meet again.”

  The thought slashed through him. He sat straight with a muttered exclamation. Why didn’t that occur to me before?

  She stared. “Is something wrong?”

  He ran angles and aspects through his head, chuckled gleefully at the result, and squeezed her fingers. “Contrariwise,” he said, “I’ve hit on a sort of answer. If you’re interested.”

  “What? I—What is it?”

  “Well,” he said, “you brushed off the idea of yourself in my line of work as a fantasy, but weren’t you too quick? You’ve proven you’re tough and smart, not to mention beautiful and charming. On top of that, there’s this practically unique wild talent of yours. And Ydwyr wouldn’t be hard to convince you’re zigzagged back to him. Our Navy Intelligence will jump for joy to have you, after I pass word along the channels open to me. We’d see each other often, I daresay, perhaps now and then we’d work together…why, even if they get you into the Roidhunate as a double agent—”

  He stopped. Horror confronted him.

  “What…what’s the matter?” he faltered.

  Her lips moved several times before she could speak. Her eyes stayed dry and had gone pale, as if a flame had passed behind them. There was no hue at all in her face.

  “You too,” she got out.

  “Huh? I don’t—”

  She checked him by lifting a hand. “Everybody,” she said, “as far back as I can remember. Ending with Ydwyr, and now you.”

  “What in cosmos?”

  “Using me.” Her tone was flat, not loud in the least. She stared past him. “You know,” she said, “the funny part is, I wanted to be used. I wanted to give, serve, help, belong to somebody…But you only saw a tool. A thing. Every one of you.”

  “Djana, I give you my word of honor—”

  “Honor?” She shook her head, slowly. “It’s a strange feeling,” she told her God, in a voice turned high and puzzled, like that of a child who cannot understand, “to learn, once and forever, that there’s no one who cares. Not even You.” She squared her shoulders. “Well, I’ll manage.”

  Her look focused on Flandry, who sat helpless and gaping. “As for you,” she said levelly, “I guess I can’t stop you from having almost any woman who comes by. But I’ll wish this, that you never get the one you really want.”

  He thought little of her remark, then. “You’re overwrought,” he said, hoping sharpness would work. “Drunk. Hysterical.”

  “Whatever you want,” she said wearily. “Please go away.”

  He left, and arranged for a doss elsewhere. Next mornwatch the ship landed on Ysabeau. Djana walked down the gangway without saying goodbye to Flandry. He watched her, shrugged, sighed—Women! The aliens among us!—and sauntered alone toward the shuttle into town, where he could properly celebrate his victory.