Ensign Flandry Read online

  “Ujanka Station, Lieutenant Kaiser.” Shellburst nearly drowned the Anglic words. Concussion struck like a fist. The tower seemed to sway.

  “Flandry here.” He remembered to overlook naming his rank, and crisped his tone. “I’m down on the east side. Have you seen what’s on the bay?”

  “Sure have. A sub—”

  “I know. Is help on the way?”

  “No.”

  “What? But that thing’s Merseian! It’ll take this town apart unless we strike.”

  “Citizen,” said the voice raggedly, “I’ve just signed off from HQ. Recon reports the greenskin air fleet at hover in the stratosphere. Right over your head. Our fliers are scrambled to cover Highport. They’re not going anywhere else.”

  Reckon they can’t at that, Flandry thought. Let a general dogfight develop, and the result is up for grabs. A Merseian could even break through and lay an egg on our main base.

  “I understand Admiral Enriques is trying to get hold of his opposite number and enter a strenuous protest,” Kaiser fleered.

  “Never mind. What can you yourselves do?”

  “Not a mucking thing, citizen. HQ did promise us a couple of transports equipped to spray firefighting chemicals. They’ll fly low, broadcasting their identity. If the gatortails don’t shoot them regardless, they should get here in half an hour or so. Now, where are you? I’ll dispatch a flitter.”

  “I have my own,” Flandry said. “Stand by for further messages.”

  He snapped off his unit. From across the river began a high and striding peal.

  “Well?” Dragoika’s ruby eyes blazed at him.

  He told her.

  For a moment, her shoulders sagged. She straightened again. “We’ll not go down politely. If a few ships with deck guns work close—”

  “Not a chance,” Flandry said. “That vessel’s too well armored. Besides, she could sink you at twice your own range.”

  “I’ll try anyhow.” Dragoika clasped his hands. She smiled. “Farewell. Perhaps we’ll meet in the Land of Trees Beyond.”

  “No!” It leaped from him. He didn’t know why. His duty was to save himself for future use. His natural inclination was identical. But he wasn’t about to let a bunch of smug Merseians send to the bottom these people he’d sailed with. Not if he could help it!

  “Come on,” he said. “To my flier.”

  Ferok stiffened. “I, flee?”

  “Who talked about that? You’ve guns in this house, haven’t you? Let’s collect them and some assistants.” Flandry clattered down the stairs.

  He entered the alley with a slugthrower as well as his blaster. The three Tigeries followed, bearing several modern small arms between them. They ran into the Street Where They Fought and on toward Seatraders’ Castle.

  Crowds milled back and forth. No one had the civilized reflex of getting under cover when artillery spoke. But neither did many scuttle about blinded by terror. Panic would likeliest take the form of a mob rush to the waterfront, with weapons-swords and bows against pentanitro. Sailors shoved through the broil, purpose restored to them by the bells.

  A shell smote close by. Flandry was hurled into a cloth-dealer’s booth. He climbed to his feet with ears ringing, draped in multicolored tatters. Bodies were strewn between the walls. Blood oozed among the cobbles. The wounded ululated, most horribly, from beneath a heap of fallen stones.

  Dragoika lurched toward him. Her black and orange fur was smeared with red. “Are you all right?” he shouted.

  “Aye.” She loped on. Ferok accompanied them. Iguraz lay with a smashed skull, but Ferok had gathered his guns.

  By the time he reached the castle, Flandry was reeling. He entered the forecourt, sat down beside his flitter, and gasped. Dragoika called males down from the parapets and armed them. After a while, Flandry adjusted his pump. An upward shift in helmet pressure made his abused eardrums protest, but the extra oxygen restored some vitality.

  They crowded into the flitter. It was a simple passenger vehicle which could hold a score or so if they filled seats and aisle and rear end. Flandry settled himself at the board and started the grav generators. Overloaded, the machine rose sluggishly. He kept low, nigh shaving the heads of the Tigeries outside, until he was across the river and past the docks and had a screen of forest between him and the bay.

  “You’re headed for Whitestrands,” Dragoika protested.

  “Of course,” Flandry said. “We want the sun behind us.”

  She got the idea. Doubtless no one else did. They huddled together, fingered what guns they had, and muttered. He hoped their first airborne trip wouldn’t demoralize them.

  “When we set down,” he said loudly, “everyone jump out. You will find open hatches on the deck. Try to seize them first. Otherwise the boat can submerge and drown you.”

  “Then their gunners will drown too,” said a vindictive voice at his back.

  “They’ll have reserves.” Flandry understood, suddenly and shatteringly, how insane his behavior was. If he didn’t get shot down on approach, if he succeeded in landing, he still had one blaster and a few bullet projectors against how many Merseian firespitters? He almost turned around. But no, he couldn’t, not in the presence of these beings. Moral cowardice, that’s what was the matter with him.

  At the beach he veered and kicked in emergency overpower. The vehicle raced barely above the water, still with grisly slowness. A gust threw spray across the windshield. The submarine lay gray, indistinct, and terrible.

  “Yonder!” Dragoika screeched.

  She pointed south. The sea churned with dorsal fins. Fish-drawn catapult boats had begun to rise, dotting it as far as one could eye. Of course, trickled through the cellars of Flandry’s awareness. This has to be largely a Seatroll operation, partly to conserve Merseian facilities, partly to conserve the fiction. That sub’s only an auxiliary … isn’t it? Those are only advisors—well, volunteers this time—at the guns … aren’t they? But once they’ve reduced Ujanka’s defenses, the Seatrolls will clean the place out.

  I don’t give a hiss what happens to Charlie.

  An energy bolt tore through the thin fuselage. No one was hit. But he’d been seen.

  But he was under the cannon. He was over the deck.

  He stopped dead and lowered his wheels. A seat-of-the-pants shiver told him they had touched. Dragoika flung wide the door. Yelling, she led the rush.

  Flandry held his flitter poised. These were the worst seconds, the unreal ones when death, which must not be real, nibbled around him. Perhaps ten Merseians were topside, in air helmets and black uniforms: three at either gun, three or four in the opened conning tower. For the moment, that tower was a shield between him and the after crew. The rest wielded blasters and machine pistols. Lightnings raged.

  Dragoika had hit the deck, rolled, and shot from her belly. Her chatterbox spewed lead. Flame raked at her. Then Ferok was out, snapping with his own pistol. And more, and more.

  The officers in the tower, sheltered below its bulwark, fired. And now the after crew dashed beneath them. Bolts and slugs seethed through the flitter. Flandry drew up his knees, hunched under the pilot board, and nearly prayed.

  The last Tigery was out. Flandry stood the flitter upward. His luck had held; she was damaged but not crippled. (He noticed, vaguely, a burn on his arm.) In a wobbling arc, he went above the tower, turned sideways, hung onto his seat with one hand and fired out the open door with the other. Return bursts missed him. However inadequate it was, he had some protection. He cleared the Merseians away.

  An explosion rattled his teeth. Motor dead, the flitter crashed three meters down, onto the conning tower.

  After a minute, Flandry was back to consciousness. He went on hands and knees across the buckled, tilted fuselage, took a quick peek, and dropped to the bridge deck. A body, still smoking, was in his path. He shoved it aside and looked over the bulwark. The dozen Tig
eries who remained active had taken the forward gun and were using it for cover. They had stalled the second gang beneath Flandry. But reinforcements were boiling from the after hatch.

  Flandry set his blaster to wide beam and shot.

  Again. Again. The crew must be small. He’d dropped—how many?—whoops, don’t forget the hatch in the tower itself, up to this place he commanded! No, his flitter blocked the way …

  Silence thundered upon him. Only the wind and the slap-slap of water broke it, that and a steady sobbing from one Merseian who lay with his leg blasted off, bleeding to death. Satan on Saturn, they’d done it. They’d actually done it. Flandry stared at his free hand, thinking in a remote fashion how wonderful a machine it was, look, he could flex the fingers.

  Not much time to spare. He rose. A bullet whanged from the bows. “Hold off there, you tubehead! Me! Dragoika, are you alive?”

  “Yes.” She trod triumphant from behind the gun. “What next?”

  “Some of you get astern. Shoot anybody who shows himself.”

  Dragoika drew her sword. “We’ll go after them.”

  “You’ll do no such idiot thing,” Flandry stormed. “You’ll have trouble enough keeping them bottled.”

  “And you … now,” she breathed ecstatically, “you can turn these guns on the vaz-Siravo.”

  “Not that either,” Flandry said. God, he was tired! “First, I can’t man something so heavy alone and you don’t know how to help. Second, we don’t want any heroic bastards who may be left below to get the idea they can best serve the cause by dunking the lot of us.”

  He tuned his communicator. Call the Navy team to come get him and his people off. If they were too scared of violating policy to flush out this boat with anesthetic gas and take her for a prize, he’d arrange her sinking personally. But no doubt the situation would be accepted. Successes don’t bring courts-martial and policy is the excuse you make up as you go along, if you have any sense. Call the Sisterhood, too. Have them peal the battle command. Once organized, the Kursovikian ships could drive off the Seatroll armada, if it didn’t simply quit after its ace had been trumped.

  And then—and then—Flandry didn’t know what. By choice, a week abed, followed by a medal and assignment to making propaganda tapes about himself back on Terra. Wasn’t going to work that way, however. Merseia had ratcheted the war another step upward. Terra had to respond or get out. He glanced down at Dragoika as she disposed her followers on guard. She saw him and flashed back a grin. He decided he didn’t really want out after all.

  7

  Runei the Wanderer leaned forward until black-clad shoulders and gaunt green visage seemed to enter the office room of the suite. “My lord,” he said, “you know the juridical position of my government. The sea people are sovereign over the Starkadian high seas. At most, landfolk ships may be conceded a limited right of transit—provided the sea people agree. Likewise, outworld craft fly above entirely on their sufferance. You accuse us of escalation? Frankly, I think I showed remarkable forbearance in not ordering my air fleet into action after your attack on a Merseian submarine.”

  Hauksberg managed a smile. “If I may speak rather frankly in return, Commandant,” he said, “the fact that Terra’s airborne forces would then have joined the fight may have stayed your hand. Eh?”

  Runei shrugged. “In such case, who would have been escalating?”

  “By usin’ a purely Merseian unit against a, ah, Toborkan city, you’ve directly involved your planet in the war.”

  “Retaliation, my lord, and not by Merseia; by the Six-point of Zletovar, using foreign volunteers temporarily detached from duty with their regular units. It is Terra which has long promulgated the doctrine that limited retaliation is not a casus belli.”

  Hauksberg scowled. Speaking for the Empire, he could not utter his full disapproval of that principle. “Goes far back into our hist’ry, to the era of international wars. We use it these days so our people in remote parts of space’ll have some freedom of action when trouble develops, ’stead of havin’ to send couriers home askin’ for orders. Unfortunate. P’rhaps its abolition can be arranged, at least as between your government and mine. But we’ll want guarantees in exchange, y’ know.”

  “You are the diplomat, not I,” Runei said. “As of now, I chiefly want back any prisoners you hold.”

  “Don’t know if there were any survivors,” Hauksberg said. He knew quite well there were some, and that Abrams wouldn’t release them till they’d been interrogated at length, probably hypnoprobed; and he suspected Runei knew he knew. Most embarrassing. “I’ll inquire, if you wish, and urge—”

  “Thank you,” Runei said dryly. After a minute: “Not to ask for military secrets, but what will the next move be of your, khraich, allies?”

  “Not allies. The Terran Empire is not a belligerent.”

  “Spare me,” Runei snorted. “I warn you, as I have warned Admiral Enriques, that Merseia won’t stand idle if the aggressors try to destroy what Merseia has helped create to ameliorate the lot of the sea people.”

  An opening! “Point o’ fact,” Hauksberg said, as casually as he was able, “with the assault on Ujanka repelled, we’re tryin’ to restrain the Kursovikians. They’re hollerin’ for vengeance and all that sort o’ thing, but we’ve persuaded ’em to attempt negotiations.”

  A muscle jumped in Runei’s jaw, the ebony eyes widened a millimeter, and he sat motionless for half a minute. “Indeed?” he said, flat-toned.

  “Indeed.” Hauksberg pursued the initiative he had gained. “A fleet’ll depart very soon. We couldn’t keep that secret from you, nor conceal the fact of our makin’ contact with the Siravoans. So you’ll be told officially, and I may’s well tell you today, the fleet won’t fight except in self-defense. I trust none o’ those Merseian volunteers participate in any violence. If so, Terran forces would natur’lly have to intervene. But we hope to send envoys underwater, to discuss a truce with the idea of makin’ permanent peace.”

  “So.” Runei drummed his desktop.

  “Our xenological information is limited,” Hauksberg said. “And o’ course we won’t exactly get childlike trust at first. Be most helpful if you’d urge the, ah, Sixpoint to receive our delegation and listen to ’em.”

  “A joint commission, Terran and Merseian—”

  “Not yet, Commandant. Please, not yet. These’ll be nothin’ but informal preliminary talks.”

  “What you mean,” Runei said, “is that Admiral Enriques won’t lend men to any dealings that involve Merseians.”

  Correct.

  “No, no. Nothin’ so ungracious. Nothin’ but a desire to avoid complications. No reason why the sea people shouldn’t keep you posted as to what goes on, eh? But we have to know where we stand with ’em; in fact, we have to know ’em much better before we can make sensible suggestions; and you, regrettably, decline to share your data.”

  “I am under orders,” Runei said.

  “Quite. Policy’ll need to be modified on both sides before we can cooperate worth mentionin’, let alone think about joint commissions. That sort o’ problem is why I’m goin’ on to Merseia.”

  “Those hoofs will stamp slowly.”

  “Hey? Oh. Oh, yes. We’d speak of wheels. Agreed, with the best will in the universe, neither government can end this conflict overnight. But we can make a start, you and us. We restrain the Kursovikians, you restrain the Sixpoint. All military operations suspended in the Zletovar till further notice. You’ve that much discretionary power, I’m sure.”

  “I do,” Runei said. “You do. The natives may not agree. If they decide to move, either faction, I am bound to support the sea people.”

  Or if you tell them to move, Hauksberg thought. You may. In which case Enriques will have no choice but to fight. However, I’ll assume you’re honest, that you’d also like to see this affair wound up before matters get out of hand. I have to assume that. Otherwi
se I can only go home and help Terra prepare for interstellar war.

  “You’ll be gettin’ official memoranda and such,” he said. “This is preliminary chit-chat. But I’ll stay on, myself, till we see how our try at a parley is shapin’ up. Feel free to call on me at any time.”

  “Thank you. Good day, my lord.”

  “Good day, Com—Fodaich.” Though they had been using Anglic, Hauksberg was rather proud of his Eriau.

  The screen blanked. He lit a cigaret. Now what? Now you sit and wait, m’ boy. You continue gathering reports, conducting interviews, making tours of inspection, but this is past the point of diminishing returns, among these iron-spined militarists who consider you a meddlesome ass. You’ll see many an empty hour. Not much amusement here. Good thing you had the foresight to take Persis along.

  He rose and drifted from the office to the living room. She sat there watching the animation. Ondine again—poor kid, the local tape library didn’t give a wide selection. He lowered himself to the arm of her lounger and laid a hand on her shoulder. It was bare, in a low-cut blouse; the skin felt warm and smooth, and he caught a violet hint of perfume.

  “Aren’t you tired o’ that thing?” he asked.

  “No.” She didn’t quite take her eyes from it. Her voice was dark and her mouth not quite steady. “Wish I were, though.”

  “Why?”

  “It frightens me. It reminds me how far we are from home, the strangeness, the—And we’re going on.”

  Half human, the mermaid floated beneath seas which never were.

  “Merseia’s p’rhaps a touch more familiar,” Hauksberg said. “They were already industrialized when humans discovered ’em. They caught onto the idea of space travel fast.”

  “Does that make them anything like us? Does it make us like … like ourselves?” She twisted her fingers together. “People say ‘hyperdrive’ and ‘light-year’ so casually. They don’t understand. They can’t or won’t. Too shallow.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve mastered the theory,” he jollied her.