Ensign Flandry Read online

  Ferok lifted a telescope and swept it around an arc. That was a native invention. Kursoviki was the center of the planet’s most advanced land culture. “No sign of anything yet,” he said. “Do you think yon Outsider flyboat may attack us?”

  “I doubt that,” Flandry said. “Most likely it was simply on hand because of having brought some Merseian advisors, and shot at me because I might be carrying instruments which would give me a clue as to what’s going on down below. It’s probably returned to Kimraig by now.” He hesitated before continuing: “The Merseians, like us, seldom take a direct role in any action, and then nearly always just as individual officers, not representatives of their people. Neither of us wishes to provoke a response in kind.”

  “Afraid?” Lips curled back from fangs.

  “On your account,” Flandry said, somewhat honestly. “You have no dream of what our weapons can do to a world.”

  “World … hunh, the thought’s hard to seize. Well, let the Sisterhood try. I’m happy to be a plain male.”

  Flandry turned and looked across the deck. The Archer was a big ship by Starkadian measure, perhaps five hundred tons, broad in the beam, high in the stern, a carven post at the prow as emblem of her tutelary spirit. A deckhouse stood amidships, holding galley, smithy, carpenter shop, and armory. Everything was gaudily painted. Three masts carried yellow square sails aloft, fore-and-aft beneath; at the moment she was tacking on the latter and a genoa. The crew were about their duties on deck and in the rigging. They numbered thirty male hands and half a dozen female officers. The ship had been carrying timber and spices from Ujanka port down the Chain archipelago.

  “What armament have we?” he asked.

  “Our Terran deck gun,” Ferok told him. “Five of your rifles. We were offered more, but Dragoika said they’d be no use till we had more people skilled with them. Otherwise, swords, pikes, crossbows, knives, belaying pins, teeth, and nails.” He gestured at the mesh which passed from side to side of the hull, under the keel. “If that twitches much, could mean a Siravo trying to put a hole in our bottom. Then we dive after him. You’d be best for that, with your gear.”

  Flandry winced. His helmet was adjustable for underwater; on Starkad, the concentration of dissolved oxygen was almost as high as in Terra’s air. But he didn’t fancy a scrap with a being evolved for such an environment.

  “Why are you here, yourself?” Ferok asked conversationally. “Pleasure or plunder?”

  “Neither. I was sent.” Flandry didn’t add that the Navy reckoned it might as well use Starkad to give certain promising young officers some experience. “Promising” made him sound too immature. At once he realized he’d actually sounded unaggressive and prevaricated in haste: “Of course, with the chance of getting into a fight, I would have asked to go anyway.”

  “They tell me your females obey males. True?”

  “Well, sometimes.” The second mate passed by and Flandry’s gaze followed her. She had curves, a tawny mane rippling down her back, breasts standing fuller and firmer than any girl could have managed without technological assistance, and a nearly humanoid nose. Her clothing consisted of some gold bracelets. But her differences from the Terran went deeper than looks. She didn’t lactate; those nipples fed blood directly to her infants. And hers was the more imaginative, more cerebral sex, not subordinated in any culture, dominant in the islands around Kursoviki. He wondered if that might trace back to something as simple as the female body holding more blood and more capacity to regenerate it.

  “But who, then, keeps order in your home country?” Ferok wondered. “Why haven’t you killed each other off?”

  “Um-m-m, hard to explain,” Flandry said. “Let me first see if I understand your ways, to compare mine. For instance, you owe nothing to the place where you live, right? I mean, no town or island or whatever is ruled, as a ship is … right? Instead—at any rate in this part of the world—the females are organized into associations like the Sisterhood, whose members may live anywhere, which even have their special languages. They own all important property and make all important decisions through those associations. Thus disputes among males have little effect on them. Am I right?”

  “I suppose so. You might have put it more politely.”

  “Apology-of-courage is offered. I am a stranger. Now among my people—”

  A shout fell from the crow’s nest. Ferok whirled and pointed his telescope. The crew sprang to the starboard rail, clustered in the shrouds, and yelled.

  Dragoika bounded from the captain’s cabin under the poop. She held a four-pronged fish spear in one hand, a small painted drum beneath her arm. Up the ladder she went, to stand by the quartermistress at the wheel and look for herself. Then, coolly, she tapped her drum on one side, plucked the steel strings across the recessed head on the other. Twang and thump carried across noise like a bugle call. All hands to arms and battle stations!

  “The vaz-Siravo!” Ferok shouted above clamor. “They’re on us!” He made for the deckhouse. Restored to discipline, the crew were lining up for helmets, shields, byrnies, and weapons.

  Flandry strained his eyes into the glare off the water. A score or so blue dorsal fins clove it, converging on the ship. And suddenly, a hundred meters to starboard, a submarine rose.

  A little, crude thing, doubtless home-built to a Merseian design—for if you want to engineer a planet-wide war among primitives, you should teach them what they can make and do for themselves. The hull was greased leather stretched across a framework of some undersea equivalent of wood. Harness trailed downward to the four fish which pulled it; he could barely discern them as huge shadows under the surface. The deck lay awash. But an outsize catapult projected therefrom. Several dolphin-like bodies with transparent globes on their heads and powerpacks on their backs crouched alongside. They rose onto flukes and flippers; their arms reached to swing the machine around.

  “Dommaneek!” Dragoika screeched. “Dommaneek Falan-daree! Can you man ours?”

  “Aye, aye!” The Terran ran prow-ward. Planks rolled and thudded beneath his feet.

  On the forward deck, the two females whose duty it was were trying to unlimber the gun. They worked slowly, getting in each other’s way, spitting curses. There hadn’t yet been time to drill many competent shots, even with a weapon as simple as this, a rifle throwing 38 mm. chemical shells. Before they got the range, that catapult might—

  “Gangway!” Flandry shoved the nearest aside. She snarled and swatted at him with long red nails. Dragoika’s drum rippled an order. Both females fell back from him.

  He opened the breech, grabbed a shell from the ammo box, and dogged it in. The enemy catapult thumped. A packet arced high, down again, made a near miss and burst into flame which spread crimson and smoky across the waves. Some version of Greek fire—undersea oil wells—Flandry put his eye to the range finder. He was too excited to be scared. But he must lay the gun manually. A hydraulic system would have been too liable to breakdown. In spite of good balance and self-lubricating bearings, the barrel swung with nightmare slowness. The Seatrolls were rewinding their catapult … before Andromeda, they were fast! They must use hydraulics.

  Dragoika spoke to the quartermistress. She put the wheel hard over. Booms swung over the deck. The jib flapped thunderous until crewmales reset the sheets. The Archer came about. Flandry struggled to compensate. He barely remembered to keep one foot on the brake, lest his gun travel too far. Bet those she-cats would’ve forgotten. The enemy missile didn’t make the vessel’s superstructure as intended. But it struck the hull amidships. Under this oxygen pressure, fire billowed heavenward.

  Flandry pulled the lanyard. His gun roared and kicked. A geyser fountained, mingled with splinters. One draught fish leaped, threshed, and died. The rest already floated bellies up. “Got him!” Flandry whooped.

  Dragoika plucked a command. Most of the crew put aside their weapons and joined a firefighting party. There was a hand
pump at either rail, buckets with ropes bent to them, sails to drag from the deckhouse and wet and lower.

  Ferok, or someone, yelled through voices, wind, waves, brawling, and smoke of the flames. The Seatrolls were coming over the opposite rail.

  They must have climbed the nets. (Better invent a different warning gadget, raced through Flandry’s mind.) They wore the Merseian equipment which had enabled their kind to carry the war ashore elsewhere on Starkad. Waterfilled helmets covered the blunt heads, black absorbent skinsuits kept everything else moist. Pumps cycled atmospheric oxygen, running off powerpacks. The same capacitors energized their legs. Those were clumsy. The bodies must be harnessed into a supporting framework, the two flippers and the fluked tail control four mechanical limbs with prehensile feet. But they lurched across the deck, huge, powerful, their hands holding spears and axes and a couple of waterproof machine pistols. Ten of them were now aboard … and how many sailors could be spared from the fire?

  A rifle bullet wailed. A Seatroll sprayed lead in return. Tigeries crumpled. Their blood was human color.

  Flandry rammed home another shell and lobbed it into the sea some distance off. “Why?” screamed a gunner.

  “May have been more coming,” he said. “I hope hydrostatic shock got ’em.” He didn’t notice he used Anglic.

  Dragoika cast her fish spear. One pistol wielder went down, the prongs in him. He scrabbled at the shaft. Rifles barked, crossbows snapped, driving his mate to shelter between the deckhouse and a lifeboat. Then combat ramped, leaping Tigeries, lumbering Seatrolls, sword against ax, pike against spear, clash, clatter, grunt, shriek, chaos run loose. Several firefighters went for their weapons. Dragoika drummed them back to work. The Seatrolls made for them, to cut them down and let the ship burn. The armed Tigeries tried to defend them. The enemy pistoleer kept the Kursovikian rifle shooters pinned down behind masts and bollards—neutralized. The battle had no more shape than that.

  A bullet splintered the planks a meter from Flandry. For a moment, panic locked him where he stood. What to do, what to do? He couldn’t die. He mustn’t. He was Dominic, himself, with a lifetime yet to live. Outnumbered though they were, the Seatrolls need but wreak havoc till the fire got beyond control and he was done. Mother! Help me!

  For no sound reason, he remembered Lieutenant Danielson. Rage blossomed in him. He bounded down the ladder and across the main deck. A Seatroll chopped at him. He swerved and continued.

  Dragoika’s door stood under the poop. He slid the panel aside and plunged into her cabin. It was appointed in barbaric luxury. Sunlight sickled through an oval port, across the bulkhead as the ship rolled, touching bronze candlesticks, woven tapestry, a primitive sextant, charts and navigation tables inscribed on parchment. He snatched what he had left here to satisfy her curiosity, his impeller, buckled the unit on his back with frantic fingers and hooked in his capacitors. Now, that sword, which she hadn’t taken time to don. He re-emerged, flicked controls, and rose.

  Over the deckhouse! The Seatroll with the machine pistol lay next it, a hard target for a rifle, himself commanding stem and stern. Flandry drew blade. The being heard the slight noise and tried awkwardly to look up. Flandry struck. He missed the hand but knocked the gun loose. It flipped over the side.

  He whirred aft, smiting from above. “I’ve got him!” he shouted. “I’ve got him! Come out and do some real shooting!”

  The fight was soon finished. He used a little more energy to help spread the wet sail which smothered the fire.

  After dark, Egrima and Buruz again ruled heaven. They cast shivering glades across the waters. Few stars shone through, but one didn’t miss them with so much other beauty. The ship plowed northward in an enormous murmurous hush.

  Dragoika stood with Flandry by the totem at the prow. She had offered thanks. Kursovikian religion was a paganism more inchoate than any recorded from ancient Terra—the Tigery mind was less interested than the human in finding ultimate causes—but ritual was important. Now the crew had returned to watch or to sleep and they two were alone. Her fur was sparked with silver, her eyes pools of light.

  “Our thanks belong more to you,” she said softly. “I am high in the Sisterhood. They will be told, and remember.”

  “Oh, well.” Flandry shuffled his feet and blushed.

  “But have you not endangered yourself? You explained what scant strength is left in those boxes which keep you alive. And then you spent it to fly about.”

  “Uh, my pump can be operated manually if need be.”

  “I shall appoint a detail to do so.”

  “No need. You see, now I can use the Siravo powerpacks. I have tools in my pouch for adapting them.”

  “Good.” She looked awhile into the shadows and luminance which barred the deck. “That one whose pistol you removed—” Her tone was wistful.

  “No, ma’m,” Flandry said firmly. “You cannot have him. He’s the only survivor of the lot. We’ll keep him alive and unhurt.”

  “I simply thought of questioning him about their plans. I know a little of their language. We’ve gained it from prisoners or parleys through the ages. He wouldn’t be too damaged, I think.”

  “My superiors can do a better job in Highport.”

  Dragoika sighed. “As you will.” She leaned against him. “I’ve met vaz-Terran before, but you are the first I have really known well.” Her tail wagged. “I like you.”

  Flandry gulped. “I … I like you too.”

  “You fight like a male and think like a female. That’s something new. Even in the far southern islands—” She laid an arm around his waist. Her fur was warm and silken where it touched his skin. Somebody had told him once that could you breathe their air undiluted, the Tigeries would smell like new-mown hay. “I’ll have joy of your company.”

  “Um-m-m … uh.” What can I say?

  “Pity you must wear that helmet,” Dragoika said. “I’d like to taste your lips. But otherwise we’re not made so differently, our two kinds. Will you come to my cabin?”

  For an instant that whirled, Flandry was tempted. He had everything he could do to answer. It wasn’t based on past lectures about taking care not to offend native mores, nor on principle, nor, most certainly, on fastidiousness. If anything, her otherness made her the more piquant. But he couldn’t really predict what she might do in a close relationship, and—

  “I’m deeply sorry,” he said. “I’d love to, but I’m under a—” what was the word?—“a geas.”

  She was neither offended nor much surprised. She had seen a lot of different cultures. “Pity,” she said. “Well, you know where the forecastle is. Goodnight.” She padded aft. En route, she stopped to collect Ferok.

  —and besides, those fangs were awfully intimidating.

  5

  When Lord Hauksberg arrived in Highport, Admiral Enriques and upper-echelon staff had given a formal welcoming party for their distinguished visitor and his aides as protocol required. Hauksberg was expected to reciprocate on the eve of departure. Those affairs were predictably dull. In between, however, he invited various officers to small gatherings. A host of shrewd graciousness, he thus blunted resentment which he was bound to cause by his interviewing of overworked men and his diversion of already inadequate armed forces to security duty.

  “I still don’t see how you rate,” Jan van Zuyl complained from the bunk where he sprawled. “A lousy ensign like you.”

  “You’re an ensign yourself, me boy,” Flandry reminded him from the dresser. He gave his blue tunic a final tug, pulled on his white gloves, and buffed the jetflare insignia on his shoulders.

  “Yes, but not a lousy one,” said his roommate.

  “I’m a hero. Remember?”

  “I’m a hero too. We’re all heroes.” Van Zuyl’s gaze prowled their dismal little chamber. The girlie animations hardly brightened it. “Give L’Etoile a kiss for me.”

  “You mean she’ll be
there?” Flandry’s pulses jumped.

  “She was when Carruthers got invited. Her and Sharine and—”

  “Carruthers is a lieutenant j.g. Therefore he is ex officio a liar. Madame Cepheid’s choicest items are not available to anyone below commander.”

  “He swears milord had ’em on hand, and in hand, for the occasion. So he lies. Do me a favor and elaborate the fantasy on your return. I’d like to keep that particular illusion.”

  “You provide the whisky and I’ll provide the tales.” Flandry adjusted his cap to micrometrically calculated rakishness.

  “Mercenary wretch,” van Zuyl groaned. “Anyone else would lie for pleasure and prestige.”

  “Know, O miserable one, that I possess an inward serenity which elevates me far beyond any need for your esteem. Yet not beyond need for your booze. Especially after the last poker game. And a magnificent evening to you. I shall return.”

  Flandry proceeded down the hall and out the main door of the junior officers’ dorm. Wind struck viciously at him. Sea-level air didn’t move fast, being too dense, but on this mountaintop Saxo could energize storms of more than terrestroid ferocity. Dry snow hissed through chill and clamor. Flandry wrapped his cloak about him with a sigh for lost appearances, hung onto his cap, and ran. At his age he had soon adapted to the gravity.

  HQ was the largest building in Highport, which didn’t say much, in order to include a level of guest suites. Flandry had remarked on that to Commander Abrams, in one of their conversations following the numerous times he’d been summoned for further questioning about his experience with the Tigeries. The Intelligence chief had a knack for putting people at their ease. “Yes, sir, quite a few of my messmates have wondered if—uh—”

  “If the Imperium has sludge on the brain, taking up shipping space with luxuries for pestiferous junketeers that might’ve been used to send us more equipment. Hey?” Abrams prompted.