Young Flandry Read online

  Odd, reflected the detached part of him, for all our millennia of recorded history, for all our socio-dynamic theory and data, how the basis of power remains essentially magical. If I am laughed at, I may as well retire to my estates. And Terra needs me.

  "Darlin'," he said, "I couldn't tell you anything before. Too many ears, live and electronic, don't y' know. If the opposition got wind of what I'm about, they'd head me off. Not because they necessarily disagree, but because they don't want me to bring home a jumpin' success. That'd put me in line for the Policy Board, and everybody hopes to sit there. By arrangin' a fait accompli, though—d' you see?"

  She rested a hard gaze on him. He was a tall, slender, blond man. His features were a little too sharp; but in green tunic and decorations, gauze cloak, gold breeches and beefleather halfboots, he was more handsome than was right. "Your career," she jibed.

  "Indeed," he nodded. "But also peace. Would you like to see Terra under attack? Could happen."

  "Mark!" Abruptly she was changed. Her fingers, closing on his wrist beneath the lace, felt cold. "It can't be that serious?"

  "Nuclear," he said. "This thing out on Starkad isn't any common frontier squabble. Been touted as such, and quite a few people honestly believe it is. But they've only seen reports filtered through a hundred offices, each one bound to gloss over facts that don't make its own job look so fiery important. I've collected raw data and had my own computations run. Conservative extrapolation gives a forty percent chance of war with Merseia inside five years. And I mean war, the kind which could get total. You don't bet those odds, do you, now?"

  "No," she whispered.

  "I'm s'posed to go there on a fact-findin' mission and report back to the Emperor. Then the bureaucracy may start grindin' through the preliminaries to negotiation. Or it may not; some powerful interests'd like to see the conflict go on. But at best, things'll escalate meanwhile. A settlement'll get harder and harder to reach, maybe impossible.

  "What I want to do is bypass the whole wretched process. I want plenipotentiary authority to go direct from Starkad to Merseia and try negotiatin' the protocol of an agreement. I think it can be done. They're rational bein's too, y'know. S'pose many of 'em're lookin' for some way out of the quicksand. I can offer one." He straightened. "At least I can try."

  She sat quiet. "I understand," she said at length. "Of course I'll cooperate."

  "Good girl."

  She leaned a little toward him. "Mark—"

  "What?" His goal stood silhouetted against a crimson sheet.

  "Oh, never mind." She sat back, smoothed her gown, and stared out at the ocean.

  The Coral Palace was built on an atoll, which it engulfed even as its towers made their crooked leap skyward. Cars flittered about like fireflies. Hauksberg's set down on a flange as per GCA, let him and Alicia out, and took off for a parking raft. They walked past bowing slaves and saluting guardsmen, into an antechamber of tall waterspout columns where guests made a shifting rainbow, and so to the ballroom entrance.

  "Lord Markus Hauksberg, Viscount of Ny Kalmar, Second Minister of Extra-Imperial Affairs, and Lady Hauksberg!" cried the stentor.

  The ballroom was open to the sky, beneath a clear dome. Its sole interior lighting was ultraviolet. Floor, furnishings, orchestral instruments, tableware, food shone with the deep pure colors of fluorescence. So did the clothing of the guests, their protective skin paint and eyelenses. The spectacle was intense, rippling ruby, topaz, emerald, sapphire, surmounted by glowing masks and tresses, against night. Music lilted through the air with the scent of roses.

  Crown Prince Josip was receiving. He had chosen to come in dead black. His hands and the sagging face floated green, weirdly disembodied; his lenses smoldered red. Hauksberg bowed and Alicia bent her knee. "Your Highness."

  "Ah. Pleased to see you. Don't see you often."

  "Press of business, Your Highness. The loss is ours."

  "Yes. Understand you're going away."

  "The Starkad affair, your Highness."

  "What? . . . Oh, yes. That. How dreadfully serious and constructive. I do hope you can relax with us here."

  "We look forward to doin' so, Your Highness, though I'm 'fraid we'll have to leave early."

  "Hmph." Josip half turned.

  He mustn't be offended. "Goes without sayin' we both regret it the worst," Hauksberg purred. "Might I beg for another invitation on my return?"

  "Well, really!"

  "I'll be even more bold. My nephew's comin' to Terra. Frontier lad, y'know, but as far as I can tell from stereos and letters, quite a delightful boy. If he could actually meet the heir apparent of the Empire—why, better'n a private audience with God."

  "Well. Well, you don't say. Of course. Of course." Josip beamed as he greeted the next arrival.

  "Isn't that risky?" Alicia asked when they were out of earshot.

  "Not for my nephew," Hauksberg chuckled. "Haven't got one. And dear Josip's memory is rather notoriously short."

  He often wondered what would become of the Empire when that creature mounted the throne. But at least Josip was weak. If, by then, the Policy Board was headed by a man who understood the galactic situation . . . . He bent and kissed his lady's hand. "Got to drift off, m'dear. Enjoy yourself. With luck, things'll still be fairly decorous when we dare scoot off."

  A new dance was called and Alicia was swept away by an admiral. He was not so old, and his decorations showed that he had seen outplanet service. Hauksberg wondered if she would return home tonight.

  He maneuvered to the wall, where the crowd was thinner, and worked his way along. There was scant time to admire the view above the dome's rim, though it was fantastic. The sea marched ashimmer beneath a low moon. Long waves broke intricately, virginally white on the outer ramparts; he thought he could hear them growl. The darkness enclosed by the Lunar crescent was pinpointed with city lights. The sky illumination had now formed a gigantic banner overhead, the Sunburst alive in a field of royal blue as if stratospheric winds bugled salute. Not many stars shone through so much radiance.

  But Hauksberg identified Regulus, beyond which his mission lay, and Rigel, which burned in the heart of the Merseian dominions. He shivered. When he reached the champagne table, a glass was very welcome.

  "Good evening," said a voice.

  Hauksberg exchanged bows with a portly man wearing a particolored face. Lord Advisor Petroff was not exactly in his element at a festival like this. He jerked his head slightly. Hauksberg nodded. They gossiped a little and drifted apart. Hauksberg was detained by a couple of bores and so didn't manage to slip out the rear and catch a gravshaft downward for some while.

  The others sat in a small, sealed office. They were seven, the critical ones on the Policy Board: gray men who bore the consciousness of power like added flesh. Hauksberg made the humility salute. "My sincere apologies for keepin' my lords waitin'," he said.

  "No matter," Petroff said. "I've been explaining the situation."

  "We haven't seen any data or computations, though," da Fonseca said. "Did you bring them, Lord Hauksberg?"

  "No, sir. How could I? Every microreader in the palace is probably bugged." Hauksberg drew a breath. "My lords, you can examine the summation at leisure, once I'm gone. The question is, will you take my word and Lord Petroff's for the moment? If matters are as potentially serious as I believe, then you must agree a secret negotiator should be dispatched. If, on t'other hand, Starkad has no special significance, what have we lost by settlin' the dispute on reasonable terms?"

  "Prestige," Chardon said. "Morale. Credibility, the next time we have to counter a Merseian move. I might even be so archaic as to mention honor."

  "I don't propose to compromise any vital interest," Hauksberg pleaded, "and in all events, whatever concord I may reach'll have to be ratified here. My lords, we can't be gone long without someone noticin'. But if you'll listen—"

  He launched his speech. It had been carefully prepared. It had better be. These six men, with Pe
troff, controlled enough votes to swing a decision his way. Were they prevailed on to call a privy meeting tomorrow, with a loaded quorum, Hauksberg would depart with the authority he needed.

  Otherwise . . . . No, he mustn't take himself too seriously. Not at the present stage of his career. But men were dying on Starkad.

  In the end, he won. Shaking, sweat running down his ribs, he leaned on the table and scarcely heard Petroff say, "Congratulations. Also, good luck. You'll need plenty of that."

  Chapter Two

  Night on Starkad—

  Tallest in the central spine of Kursoviki Island was Mount Narpa, peaking at almost twelve kilometers. So far above sea level, atmospheric pressure was near Terran standard; a man could safely breathe and men had erected Highport. It was a raw sprawl of spacefield and a few score prefabs, housing no more than five thousand; but it was growing. Through the walls of his office, Commander Max Abrams, Imperial Naval Intelligence Corps, heard metal clang and construction machines rumble.

  His cigar had gone out again. He mouthed the stub until he finished reading the report on his desk, then leaned back and touched a lighter to it. Smoke puffed up toward a blue cloud which already hung under the ceiling of the bleak little room. The whole place stank. He didn't notice.

  "Damn!" he said. And deliberately, for he was a religious man in his fashion, "God damn!"

  Seeking calmness, he looked at the picture of his wife and children. But they were home, on Dayan, in the Vega region of the Empire, more parsecs distant than he liked to think. And remote in time as well. He hadn't been with them for over a year. Little Miriam was changing so he'd never recognize her, Marta wrote, and David become a lanky hobbledehoy and Yael seeing such a lot of Abba Perlmutter, though of course he was a nice boy . . . . There was only the picture, separated from him by a clutter of papers and a barricade of desk machines. He didn't dare animate it.

  Nor feel sorry for yourself, you clotbrain. The chair creaked beneath his shifted weight. He was a stocky man, hair grizzled, face big and hooknosed. His uniform was rumpled, tunic collar open, twin planets of his rank tarnished on the wide shoulders, blaster at belt. He hauled his mind back to work.

  Wasn't just that a flitter was missing, nor even that the pilot was probably dead. Vehicles got shot down and men got killed more and more often. Too bad about this kid, who was he, yes, Ensign Dominic Flandry. Glad I never met him. Glad I don't have to write his parents. But the area where he vanished, that was troubling. His assignment had been a routine reconnaissance over the Zletovar Sea, not a thousand kilometers hence. If the Merseians were getting that aggressive . . . .

  Were they responsible, though? Nobody knew, which was why the report had been bucked on to the Terran mission's Chief of Intelligence. A burst of static had been picked up at Highport from that general direction. A search flight had revealed nothing except the usual Tigery merchant ships and fishing boats. Well, engines did conk out occasionally; materiel was in such short supply that the ground crews couldn't detect every sign of mechanical overwork. (When in hell's flaming name was GHQ going to get off its numb butt and realize this was no "assistance operation to a friendly people" but a war?) And given a brilliant sun like Saxo, currently at a peak of its energy cycle, no tricks of modulation could invariably get a message through from high altitudes. On the other hand, a scout flitter was supposed to be fail safe and contain several backup systems.

  And the Merseians were expanding their effort. We don't do a mucking thing but expand ours in response. How about making them respond to us for a change? The territory they commanded grew steadily bigger. It was still distant from Kursoviki by a quarter of the planet's circumference. But might it be reaching a tentacle this way?

  Let's ask. Can't lose much.

  Abrams thumbed a button on his vidiphone. An operator looked out of the screen. "Get me the greenskin cinc," Abrams ordered.

  "Yes, sir. If possible."

  "Better be possible. What're you paid for? Tell his cohorts all gleaming in purple and gold to tell him I'm about to make my next move."

  "What, sir?" The operator was new here.

  "You heard me, son. Snarch!"

  Time must pass while the word seeped through channels. Abrams opened a drawer, got out his magnetic chessboard, and pondered. He hadn't actually been ready to play. However, Runei the Wanderer was too fascinated by their match to refuse an offer if he had a spare moment lying around; and damn if any Merseian son of a mother was going to win at a Terran game.

  Hm . . . promising development here, with the white bishop . . . no, wait, then the queen might come under attack . . . tempting to sic a computer onto the problem . . . betcha the opposition did . . . maybe not . . . ah, so.

  "Commandant Runei, sir."

  An image jumped to view. Abrams could spot individual differences between nonhumans as easily as with his own species. That was part of his business. An untrained eye saw merely the alienness. Not that the Merseians were so odd, compared to some. Runei was a true mammal from a terrestroid planet. He showed reptile ancestry a little more than Homo Sapiens does, in hairless pale-green skin, faintly scaled, and short triangular spines running from the top of his head, down his back to the end of a long heavy tail. That tail counterbalanced a forward-leaning posture, and he sat on the tripod which it made with his legs. But otherwise he rather resembled a tall, broad man. Except for complex bony convolutions in place of external ears, and brow ridges overhanging the jet eyes, his head and face might almost have been Terran. He wore the form-fitting black and silver uniform of his service. Behind him could be seen on the wall a bell-mouthed gun, a ship model, a curious statuette: souvenirs of far stars.

  "Greeting, Commander." He spoke fluent Anglic, with a musical accent. "You work late."

  "And you've dragged yourself off the rack early," Abrams grunted. "Must be about sunrise where you are."

  Runei's glance flickered toward a chrono. "Yes, I believe so. But we pay scant attention here."

  "You can ignore the sun easier'n us, all right, squatted down in the ooze. But your native friends still live by this cheap two-thirds day they got. Don't you keep office hours for them?

  Abrams' mind ranged across the planet, to the enemy base. Starkad was a big world, whose gravity and atmosphere gnawed land masses away between tectonic epochs. Thus, a world of shallow ocean, made turbulent by wind and the moons; a world of many islands large and small, but no real continents. The Merseians had established themselves in the region they called the Kimraig Sea. They had spread their domes widely across the surface, their bubblehouses over the bottom. And their aircraft ruled those skies. Not often did a recon flight, robot or piloted, come back to Highport with word of what was going on. Nor did instruments peering from spaceships as they came and went show much.

  One of these years, Abrams thought, somebody will break the tacit agreement and put up a few spy satellites. Why not us?—'Course, then the other side'll bring space warships, instead of just transports, and go potshooting. And then the first side will bring bigger warships.

  "I am glad you called," Runei said. "I have thanked Admiral Enriques for the conversion unit, but pleasure is to express obligation to a friend."

  "Huh?"

  "You did not know? One of our main desalinators broke down. Your commandant was good enough to furnish us with a replacement part we lacked."

  "Oh, yeh. That." Abrams rolled his cigar between his teeth.

  The matter was ridiculous, he thought. Terrans and Merseians were at war on Starkad. They killed each other's people. But nonetheless, Runei had sent a message of congratulations when Birthday rolled around. (Twice ridiculous! Even if a spaceship in hyperdrive has no theoretical limit to her pseudovelocity, the concept of simultaneity remains meaningless over interstellar distances.) And Enriques had now saved Runei from depleting his beer supplies.

  Because this wasn't a war. Not officially. Not even among the two native races. Tigeries and Seatrolls had fought since they evolved to inte
lligence, probably. But that was like men and wolves in ancient days, nothing systematic, plain natural enemies. Until the Merseians began giving the Seatrolls equipment and advice and the landfolk were driven back. When Terra heard about that, it was sheer reflex to do likewise for the Tigeries, preserve the balance lest Starkad be unified as a Merseian puppet. As a result, the Merseians upped their help a bit, and Terrans replied in kind, and—

  And the two empires remained at peace. These were simple missions of assistance, weren't they? Terra had Mount Narpa by treaty with the Tigeries of Ujanka, Merseia sat in Kimraig by treaty with whoever lived there. (Time out for laughter and applause. No Starkadian culture appeared to have anything like an idea of compacts between sovereign powers.) The Roidhunate of Merseia didn't shoot down Terran scouts. Heavens, no! Only Merseian militechnicians did, helping the Seatrolls of Kimraig maintain inviolate their air space. The Terran Empire hadn't bushwhacked a Merseian landing party on Cape Thunder: merely Terrans pledged to guard the frontier of their ally.

  The Covenant of Alfzar held. You were bound to assist civilized outworlders on request. Abrams toyed with the notion of inventing some requests from his side. In fact, that wasn't a bad gambit right now.

  "Maybe you can return the favor," he said. "We've lost a flitter in the Zletovar. I'm not so rude as to hint that one of your lads was cruising along and eyeballed ours and got a wee bit overexcited. But supposing the crash was accidental, how about a joint investigation?"

  Abrams liked seeing startlement on that hard green face. "You joke, Commander!"

  "Oh, naturally my boss'd have to approach you officially, but I'll suggest it to him. You've got better facilities than us for finding a sunken wreck."