Flandry of Terra df-6 Read online

  “Hullo, Luang,” he said tonelessly.

  She came to stand beside him, another slim shadow. “Well,” she said, “Kemul is buried now.”

  “I wish I could have helped you,” said Flandry, “but—”

  She sighed. “It was better this way. He always swore he would be content ‘to end in a Swamp Town canal. If he must lie under a blossoming bush, I do not think he would want anyone but me there to wish him good rest.”

  “I wonder why he came to my help.”

  “I told him to.”

  “And why did you do that?”

  “I don’t know. We all do things without thinking, now and then. The thinking comes afterward. I will not let it hurt me.” She took his arm. Her hands were tense and unsteady. “Never mind Kemul. Since you have stopped working on him, I take it you have succeeded with Warouw?”

  “Yes,” said Flandry.

  “How did you do it? Torture?” she asked casually.

  “Oh, no,” he said. “I didn’t even withhold medical care for his injuries: which are minor, anyhow. I simply explained that we had a cage for him if he didn’t cooperate. It took a few hours’ argument to convince him we meant it. Then he yielded. After all, he’s an able man. He can leave this planet-he’d better!-and start again elsewhere, and do rather well, I should think.”

  “Do you mean to let him go?” she protested.

  Flandry shrugged. “I had to make the choice as clear-cut as possible-between dying of the sickness, and starting afresh with a substantial cash stake. Though I wonder if the adventurous aspect of it didn’t appeal to him most, once I’d dangled a few exotic worlds before his imagination.”

  “What of that earful of men out in the forest?”

  “Warouw’s just called them on the dispenser’s radiocom, to come and get me. They’re to land on the airstrip-change of plan, he said. Djuanda, Siak, and some others are waiting there, with blasters in their hands and revenge in their hearts. It won’t be any problem.”

  “And then what is to happen?”

  “Tomorrow Warouw will call Biocontrol. He’ll explain that he has me secure, and that some of my co-conspirators spilled enough of what I’d told them for him to understand the situation pretty well. He and some Guards will take me in my own flitter to Spica, accompanied by another ship. En route he’ll hypnoprobe me and get the full details. Tentatively, his idea will be to sabotage the flitter, transfer to the other craft, and let mine crash with me aboard. Somewhat later, he and the Guards will land. They’ll tell the Imperial officials a carefully doctored story of my visit, say they’re returning what they believe was a courtesy call, and be duly shocked to learn of my ‘accidental’ death. In the course of all this, they’ll drop enough false information to convince everyone that Unan Besar is a dreary place with no trade possibilities worth mentioning.”

  “I see,” nodded the girl. “You only sketched the idea to me before. Of course, the ‘Guards’ will be Ranau men, in uniforms lifted from the car crew; and they will actually be watching Warouw every second, rather than you. But do you really think it can be done without rousing suspicion?”

  “I know damn well it can,” said Flandry, “because Warouw has been promised the cage if Biocontrol does sabotage the Central prematurely. He’ll cooperate! Also, remember what slobs the Guard Corps are. A half-witted horse could cheat them at pinochle. Bandang and the other governors shouldn’t be hard to diddle either, with their own trusted Nias Warouw assuring them everything is lovely.”

  “When will you come back?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Not for a good many days. We’ll take along enough scientific material for the antitoxin to be synthesized, of course… and enough other stuff to convince the Imperial entrepreneurs that Unan Besar is worth their attention. A large supply of pills will have to be made ready, ships and ships full. Because naturally Biocontrol Central will be destroyed when they arrive, by some idiot like Genseng. But the merchant fleet will know where all the dispensaries are, and be ready to supply each one instantly. It will all take a while to prepare, though.”

  Flandry sought yellow Spica in the sky, which was now quickening with stars. Here they called Spica the Golden Lotus, doutbless very poetic and so on. But he felt his own depression and tiredness slide away as he thought of its colony planet, bright lights, smooth powerful machines, sky-high towers-his kind of world! And afterward there would be Home…

  Luang sensed it in him. She gripped his arm and said almost in terror: “You will come back, will you not? You will not just leave everything to those merchants?”

  “What?” He came startled out of his reverie. “Oh. I see. Well, honestly, darling, you’ve nothing to be afraid of. The transition may be a little violent here and there. But you’re welcome to remain at Ranau, where things will stay peaceful, until you feel like a triumphal return to Kompong Timur. Or like getting passage to the Imperial planets—”

  “I don’t care about that!” she cried. “I want your oath you will return with the fleet.”

  “Well-” He capitulated. “All right. I’ll come back for a while.”

  “And afterward?”

  “Lookhere,” he said, alarmed, “I’m as mossless a stone as you’ll find in a universe of rolling. I mean, well, if I tried to stay put anywhere, I’d be eating my fingernails in thirty days and eating the carpet in half a year. And, uh, my work isn’t such that any, well, any untrained person could—”

  “Oh, never mind.” She let his arm go. Her voice was flat among the leaves. “It doesn’t matter. You need not return at all, Dominic.”

  “I said I’d do that much,” he protested rather feebly.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she repeated. “I never asked for more than a man could give.”

  She left him. He stared after her. It was hard to tell in the dimness, but he thought she bore her head high. Almost, he followed, but as she vanished among leaves and shadows he decided it was best not to. He stood for a time under the stars, breathing the night wind. Then faintly across ten kilometers, he heard the crash and saw the flare of guns.

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