Flandry of Terra Page 4

  Loa was up, Luna-sized, nearly full, but with several times the albedo of Earth’s moon. High in a clear blackness, it drowned most of the alien constellations. The marker lights about every rock, color-coded for depth so that all Jairnovaunt was one great jewelbox, grew pallid in the moon-dazzle off the ocean.

  Flandry took out a cigarette. It was enough to be alone with that light: at least, it helped. Imperial agents ought to have some kind of conscience-ectomy performed… He drew smoke into his lungs.

  “Can you nay rest, Captain?” The low woman-voice brought him bounding around. When he saw the moonlight gleam off Tessa Hoorn, he put back his gun, sheepishly.

  “You seem a wee bit wakeful yourself,” he answered. “Unless you are sleep-walking, or sleep-diving or whatever people do here. But no, surely I am the one asleep. Don’t rouse me.”

  The moon turned her into darknesses and lithe witcheries, with great marching waters to swirl beneath her feet. She had been swimming-Loa glistened off a million cool drops, her only garment. He remembered how they had talked and laughed and traded songs and recollections and even hopes, under tall skies or moonlit sails. His heart stumbled, and glibness died.

  “Aye. My net would nay hold fast to sleep this night.” She stood before him, eyes lowered. It was the first time she had not met his gaze. In the streaming unreal light, he saw how a pulse fluttered in her throat. “So I wended from my bunk and-” The tones faded. “Why did you come here again?” he asked. “Oh… it was a place to steer for. Or perchance… Nay!” Her lips tried to smile, but were not quite steady. “Where were you this evening, sith we are so curious?”

  “I spoke to Old John,” he said, because so far truth would serve his purpose. “It wasn’t easy.”

  “Aye. I wouldn’t give your work to an enemy, Dominic. Why do you do it?”

  He shrugged. “It’s all I really know how to do.”

  “Nay!” she protested. “To aid a brute of a governor or a null of a resident-you’re too much a man. You could come… here, even-Nay, the sun wouldn’t allow it for long… “

  “It’s not quite for nothing,” he said. “The Empire is-” he grinned forlornly-“less perfect than myself. True. But what would replace it is a great deal worse.”

  “Are you so sure, Dominic?”

  “No,” he said in bitterness.

  “You could dwell on a frontier world and do work you are sure is worth yourself. I… even I have thought, there is more in this universe than Nyanza… if such a planet had oceans, I could-“

  Flandry said frantically: “Didn’t you mention having a child, Tessa?”

  “Aye, a Commander-child, but sith I’m unwed as yet the boy was adopted out.” He looked his puzzlement and she explained, as glad as he to be impersonal: “The Commander must not wed, but lies with whom he will. It’s a high honor, and if she be husbandless the woman gets a great dowry from him. The offspring of these unions are raised by the mothers’ kin; when they are all old enough, the councillors elect the best-seeming son heir apparent.”

  Somewhere in his rocking brain, Flandry thought that the Terran Emperors could learn a good deal from Nyanza. He forced a chuckle and said: “Why, that makes you the perfect catch, Tessa-titled, rich, and the mother of a potential chieftain. How did you escape so far?”

  “There was nay the right man,” she whispered. “Inyanduma himself is so much a man, see you, for all his years. Only Derek Umbolu-how you unlock me, Terran!-and him too proud to wed ‘bove his station.” She caught her breath and blurted desperately: “But I’m nay more a maid, and I will nay wait until Full Entropy to be again a woman.”

  Flandry could have mumbled something and gotten the devil out of there. But he remembered through a brawling in his blood that he was an Imperial agent and that something had been done by this girl in southern waters which they kept secret from him.

  He kissed her.

  She responded shyly at first, and then with a hunger that tore at him. They sat for a long while under the moon, needing no words, until Flandry felt with dim surprise that the tide was licking his feet.

  Tessa rose. “Come to my house,” she said.

  It was the moment when he must be a reptile-blooded scoundrel… or perhaps a parfait gentile knight, he was desolately uncertain which. He remained seated, looking up at her, where she stood crowned with stars, and said:

  “I’m sorry. It wouldn’t do.”

  “Fear me naught,” she said with a small catch of laughter, very close to a sob. “You can leave when you will. I’d nay have a man who wouldn’t stay freely. But I’ll do my best to keep you, Dominic, dearest.”

  He fumbled after another cigarette. “Do you think I’d like anything better?” he said. “But there’s a monster loose on this planet, I’m all but sure of it I will not give you just a few hours with half my mind on my work. Afterward-” He left it unfinished.

  She stood quiet for a time that stretched.

  “It’s for Nyanza too,” he pleaded. “If this goes on un-reined, it could be the end of your people.”

  “Aye,” she said in a flat tone.

  “You could help me. When this mission is finished-“

  “Well… what would you know?” She twisted her face away from his eyes.

  He got the cigarette lighted and squinted through the smoke. “What were you doing in The Kraal?”

  “I’m nay so sure now that I do love you, Dominic.”

  “Will you tell me, so I’ll know what I have to face?”

  She sighed. “Rossala is arming. They are making warcraft, guns, torpedoes-none nuclear, sith we have nay facilities for it, but more than the Terran law allows us. I don’t know why, though rumor speaks of sunken Uhunhu. The Sheikh guards his secrets. But there are whispers of freedom. It may or may not be sooth. We’ll nay make trouble with the Imperium for fellow Nyanzans, but… we arm ourselves, too, in case Rossala should start again the old wars. I arranged an alliance with The Kraal.”

  “And if Rossala should not attack you, but revolt against Terra?” asked Flandry. “What would your own re-armed alliance do?”

  “I know naught ‘bout that. I am but one Nyanzan. Have you nay gained enough?”

  She slammed down her ‘lung helmet and dove off the edge. He did not see her come up again.

  VII

  With a whole planetful of exotic sea foods to choose from, the Commander hospitably breakfasted his guest on imported beefsteak. Flandry walked out among morning tide pools, through a gusty salt wind, and waited in grimness and disgruntlement for events to start moving.

  He was a conspicuous figure in his iridescent white garments, standing alone on a jut of rock with the surf leaping at his feet. A harpoon gunner could have fired upward from the water and disappeared. Flandry did not take his eyes off the blue and green whitecaps beyond the breakers. His mind dwelt glumly on Tessa Hoorn… God damn it, he would go home by way of Morvan and spend a week in its pleasure city and put it all on the expense account. What was the use of this struggle to keep a decaying civilization from .being eaten alive, if you never got a chance at any of the decadence yourself?

  A black shape crossed his field of vision. He poised, warily. The man swam like a seal, but straight into the surf. There were sharp rocks in that cauldron-hold it!-Derek Umbolu beat his way through, grasped the wet stone edge Flandry stood on, and chinned himself up. He pushed back his helmet with a crash audible over the sea-thunder and loomed above Flandry like a basalt cliff. His eyes went downward 30 centimeters to lock with the Terran’s, and he snarled:

  “What have you done to her?”

  “My lady .Hoorn?” Flandry asked. “Unfortunately, nothing.”

  A fist cocked. “You lie, Lubber! I know the lass. I saw her this dawn and she had been weeping.”

  Flandry smiled lop-sided. “And I am necessarily to blame? Don’t you flatter me a bit? She spoke rather well of you, Captain.”

  A shiver went through the huge body. Derek stepped back one pace; teeth caugh
t at his lip. “Say nay more,” he muttered.

  “I’d have come looking for you today,” said Flandry. “We still have a lot to talk about. Such as the man who tried to kill me last night.”

  Derek spat. “A pity he didn’t succeed!”

  “Your father thought otherwise, seeing the attempt was made on his own rock. He was quite indignant.”

  Derek’s eyes narrowed. His nostrils stirred, like an angry bull’s, and his head slanted forward. “So you spoke to my father after all, did you, now? I warned you, Impy-“

  “We had a friendly sort of talk,” said Flandry. “He doesn’t believe anything can be gained by shooting men in their sleep.”

  “I suppose all your own works would stand being refereed?”

  Since they would certainly not, Flandry donned a frown and continued: “I’d keep an eye on your father, though. I’ve seen these dirty little fanaticisms before. Among the first people to be butchered are the native-born who keep enough native sense and honor to treat the Imperial like a fellow-being. You see, such people are too likely to understand that the revolution is really organized by some rival imperialism, and that you can’t win a war where your own home is the battleground.”

  “Arrgh!” A hoarse animal noise, for no words were scornful enough.

  “And my would-be assassin is still in business,” continued Flandry. “He knows I did talk to your father. Hate me as much as you like, Captain Umbolu, but keep a guard over the old gentleman. Or at least speak to a certain Rossalan whom I don’t accuse you of knowing.”

  For a moment longer the brown eyes blazed against the glacial gray blandness of the Terran’s. Then Derek clashed his helmet down and returned to the water.

  Flandry sighed. He really should start the formal machinery of investigation, but he went back to the house with an idea of borrowing some fishing tackle.

  Inyanduma, seated at a desk among the inevitable documents of government, gave him a troubled look. “Are you certain that there is a real conspiracy on Nyanza?” he asked. “We’ve ever had our hotheads, like all others… aye, I’ve seen other planets, I ‘listed for the space Navy in my day and hold a reserve commission.”

  Flandry sat down and looked at his fingernails. “Then why haven’t you reported what you know about Rossala?” he asked softly.

  Inyanduma started. “Are you a telepath?”

  “No. It’d make things too dull.” Flandry lit a fresh cigarette. “I know Rossala is arming, and that your nation is alarmed enough about it to prepare defensive weapons and alliances. Since the Empire would protect you, you must expect the Empire to be kicked off Nyanza.”

  “Nay,” whispered Inyanduma. “We’ve nay certainty of aught. It’s but… we won’t bring a horde of detectives, belike a Terran military force, by denouncing our fellow nation… on so little proof… And yet we must keep some freedom of action, in case-“

  “Especially in case Rossala calls on you to join in cutting the Terran apron strings?”

  “Nay, nay-“

  “Under such circumstances, it would be pathetic.” Flandry shook his tongue-clicking head. “It’s so amateurishly done that I feel grossly overpaid for my time here. But whoever engineered the conspiracy in the first place is no amateur. He used your parochial loyalties with skill. And he must expect to move soon, before a pre-occupied Imperium can find out enough about his arrangements to justify sending in the marines. The resident’s assassination is obviously a key action. It was chance I got here the very day that had happened, but someone like me would surely have arrived not many days later, and not been a great deal longer about learning as much as I’ve done. Of course, if they can kill me it will delay matters for a while, which will be helpful to them; but they don’t seem to expect they’ll need much time.”

  Flandry paused, nodded to himself, and carried on. “Ergo, if this affair is not stopped, we can expect Rossala to revolt within a few weeks at the very latest. Rossala will call on the other Nyanzan nations to help-and they’ve been cleverly maneuvered into arming themselves and setting up a skeleton military organization. If the expert I suspect is behind the revolution, those leaders such as yourself, who demur at the idea, will die and be replaced by more gullible ones. Of course, Nyanza will have been promised outside help: I don’t imagine even Derek Umbolu thinks one planet can stand off all Terra’s power. Merseia is not too far away. If everything goes smoothly, we’ll end up with a nominally independent Nyanza which is actually a Merseian puppet-deep within Terran space. If the attempt fails, well, what’s one more radioactive wreck of a world to Merseia?”

  There was a stillness.

  In the end Inyanduma said grayly: “I don’t know but what the hazard you speak of will be better than to call in the Terrans; for in sooth all our nations have broken your law in that we have gathered weapons as you say. The Imperials would nay leave us what self-government we now have.”

  “They might not be necessary,” said Flandry. “Since you do have those weapons, and the City constabulary is a legally armed native force with some nuclear equipment… you could do your own housecleaning. I could supervise the operation, make sure it was thorough, stamp my report to headquarters Fantastically Secret, and that would be the close of the affair.”

  He stood up. “Think it over,” he said.

  It was peaceful out on the rock. Flandry’s reel hummed, the lure flashed through brilliant air, the surf kittened gigantically with his hook. It did not seem to matter greatly that he got never a nibble. The tide began to rise again, he’d have to go inside or exchange his rod for a trident…

  A kayak came over drowned skerries like something alive. Derek Umbolu brought it to Flandry’s feet and looked up. His face was sea-wet, which was merciful; Flandry did not want to know whether the giant was crying.

  “Blood,” croaked Derek. “Blood, and the chairs broken, I could see in the blood how he was dragged out and thrown to the fish.”

  Hollowness lay in Dominic Flandry’s heart. He felt his shoulders slump. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Oh, God, I’m sorry.”

  Words ripped out, flat, hurried, under the ramping tidal noise:

  “They center in Rossala, but someone in Uhunhu captains it. I was to seize control here when they rise, if Inyanduma will nay let us help the revolution. I hated the killing of old Bannerji, but it was needful. For now there will be nay effective space traffic control, till they replace him, and in two weeks there will come ships from Merseia with heavy nuclear war-weapons such as we can’t make on this planet. The same man who gaffed Bannerji tried for you. He was the only trained assassin in Jairnovaunt-and a neighbor gave you alibi-so I believe none of his whinings that he’d nay touched my father. His name was Mamoud Shufi. Cursed be it till the sun is cold clinkers!”

  One great black hand unzipped the kayak cover. The other hand swooped down, pulled out something which dripped, and flung it at the Terran’s feet so hard that one dead eye burst from the lopped-off head.

  VIII

  Elsewhere on Nyanza it growled battle, men speared and shot each other, ships went to the bottom and buildings cracked open like rotten fruit. Where Flandry stood was only turquoise and lace. Perhaps some of the high white clouds banked in the west had a smoky tinge.

  A crewman with a portable sonic fathometer nodded. “We’re over Uhunhu shoals now, sir.”

  “Stop the music,” said Flandry. The skipper transmitted several orders, he felt the pulse of engines die, the submarine lay quiet. Looking down gray decks past the shark’s fin of a conning tower, Flandry saw crewmen gathering in a puzzled, almost resentful way. They had expected to join the fighting, till this Terran directed the ship eastward.

  “And now,” said Derek Umbolu grimly, “will you have the kindness to say why we steered clear of Rossala?”

  Flandry cocked an eyebrow. “Why are you so anxious to kill other men?” he countered.

  Derek bristled. “I’m nay afraid to hazard my skin, Impy… like someone I could name!”


  ”’There’s more to it than that,” said Flandry. He was not sure why he prattled cheap psychology when a monster crouched under his feet. Postponing the moment? He glanced at Tessa Hoorn, who had insisted on coming. “Do you see what I mean, Lightmistress? Do you know why he itches so to loose his harpoon?”

  Some of the chill she had shown him in the past week thawed. “Aye,” she said. “Belike I do. It’s blood guilt enough that we’re party to a war ‘gainst our own planetmen, without being safe into the bargain.”

  He wondered how many shared her feelings. Probably no large number. After he and Inyanduma flew to the City and got the Warden to mobilize his constables, a call had gone out for volunteers. The Nyanzan public had only been informed that a dangerous conspiracy had been discovered, centered in Rossala, that the Sheikh had refused the police right of entry, and that therefore a large force would be needed to seize that nation over the resistance of its misguided citizens and occupy it while the Warden’s specialists sniffed out the actual plotters. And men had come by the many thousands, from all over the planet.

  It was worse, though, for those who knew what really lay behind this police operation.

  Flandry mused aloud, “I wonder if you’ll ever start feeling that way about your fellowmen, wherever they happen to live?”

  “Enough!” rapped Derek Umbolu. “Say why you brought us hither and be done!”

  Flandry kindled a cigarette and stared over the rail, into chuckling sun-glittering waves so clear that he could see how the darkness grew with every meter of depth. He said:

  “Down there, if he hasn’t been warned somehow that I know about him, is the enemy.”

  “Ai-a!” Tessa Hoorn dropped a hand to her gun; but Flandry saw with an odd little pain how she moved all unthinkingly closer to Derek. “But who would lair in drowned Uhunhu?”

  “The name I know him by is A’u,” said Flandry. “He isn’t human. He can breathe water as well as air-I suppose his home planet must be pretty wet, though I don’t know where it is. But it’s somewhere in the Merseian Empire, and he, like me, belongs to the second oldest profession. We’ve played games before now. I flushed him on Conjumar two Earth-years ago: my boys cleaned up his headquarters, and his personal spaceship took a near miss that left it lame and radioactive. But he got away. Not home, his ship wasn’t in that good a condition, but away.”