had an enemy spy right here?"
"That's what I'm s'posed to find out, sweetling."
"Well, there was only a single xeno on the team." She sighed. "I'd hate
to believe he was enemy. So beautiful a person. You know, I daydreamed
about going to bed with him, though of course I don't imagine that'd
have worked, even if he did look pretty much like a man."
"Who was he? Where from?"
"Uh--his name, Ay ... Aycharaych." She handled the diphthongs better
than the open consonants. "From, uh, he said his planet's called
Chereion. Way off toward Betelgeuse."
Further, Flandry thought amidst a thrumming.
This time he didn't bother to conceal his right name or his very origin.
And why should he? Nobody would check on a duly accredited member of an
Imperial Intelligence force--not that the files in Thursday Landing
would help anyway--and he could read in their minds that none had ever
heard of an obscure world within the Roidhunate--and the secrecy command
would cover his trail as long as he needed, after he'd done his damage
and was gone.
When at last, maybe, the truth came out: why, our people who do know a
little something about Chereion would recognize that was where he glided
from, as soon as they heard his description, regardless of whether he'd
given a false origin or not. He might as well amuse himself by leaving
his legal signature.
Which I'd already begun to think I saw in this whole affair. Dreams and
shadows and flitting ghosts--
"He's about as tall as you are," Susette was saying, "skinny--no, I mean
fine-boned and lean--except for wide shoulders and a kind of jutting
chest. Six fingers to a hand, extra-jointed, ambery nails; but four
claws to a foot and a spur behind, like a sort of bird. And he did say
his race conies from a, uh, an analogue of flightless birds. I can't say
a lot more about his body, because he always wore a long robe, though
usually going barefoot. His face ... well, I'd make him sound ugly if I
spoke about a dome of a brow, big hook nose, thin lips, pointed ears,
and of course all the, the shapes, angles, proportions different from
ours. Actually, he's beautiful. I could've spent days looking into those
huge red-brown whiteless eyes of his, if he'd let me. His skin is deep
gold color. He has no hair anywhere I saw, but a kind of shark-fin crest
on the crown of his head, made from dark-blue feathers, and tiny
feathers for eyebrows. His voice is low and ... pure music."
Flandry nodded. "M-hm. He stayed in your house?"
"Yes. We and the servants were strictly forbidden to mention him
anywhere outside. When he visited the building his team had taken
over--or maybe left town altogether; I can't say--he'd put on boots, a
cowl, a face mask, like he came from someplace where men cover up
everything in public; and walking slow, he could make his gait pass for
human."
"Did you get any hints of what he did?"
"No. They called him a ... consultant." Susette sat upright. "Was he
really a spy?"
"I can identify him," Flandry said, "and the answer is no." Why should
he spy on his own companions--subordinates? And he didn't bring them
here to collect information, except incidentally. Fm pretty sure he came
to kindle a war.
"Oh, I'm glad," Susette exclaimed. "He was such a lovely guest. Even
though I often couldn't follow his conversation. Martin did better, but
he'd get lost too when Aycharaych started talking about art and
history--of Terra! He made me ashamed I was that ignorant about my own
planet. No, not ashamed; really interested, wanting to go right out and
learn if only I knew how. And then he'd talk on my level, like
mentioning little things I'd never much noticed or appreciated, and
getting me to care about them, till this dull place seemed full of
wonder and--"
She subsided. "Have I told you enough?" she asked.
"I may have a few more questions later," Flandry said, "but for now,
She held out her arms. "Oh, no, you're not, you man, you! You've just
begun. C'mere."
Flandry did. But while he embraced her, he was mostly harking back to
the last time he met Aycharaych.
IX
--
{That was four years ago, in the planet-wide winter of eccentrically
orbiting Talwin. Having landed simultaneously from the warships which
brought them hither, Captain Sir Dominic Flandry and his opposite
number, Qanryf Tachwyr the Dark, were received with painstaking
correctness by the two commissioners of their respective races who
administered the joint Merseian-Terran scientific base. After due
ceremony, they expressed a wish to dine privately, that they might
discuss the tasks ahead of them in frankness and at leisure.
The room for this was small, austerely outfitted as the entire outpost
necessarily was. Talwin's system coursed through the Wilderness, that
little-explored buffer zone of stars between Empire and Roidhunate; it
had no attraction for traders; the enterprise got a meager budget. A
table, some chairs and stools, a sideboard, a phone were the whole
furniture, unless you counted the dumbwaiter with sensors and extensible
arms for serving people who might not wish a live attendant while they
talked.
Flandry entered cheerily, 0.88 gee lending bounce to his gait. The
Merseian officer waited, half dinosaurian despite a close-fitting
silver-trimmed black uniform, bold against snowfields, frozen river, and
shrunken sun in crystalline sky which filled a wall transparency behind
him.
"Well, you old rascal, how are you?" The man held forth his hand in
Terran wise. Tachwyr clasped it between warm dry fingers and leathery
palm. They had no further amicable gesture to exchange, since Flandry
lacked a tail.
"Thirsty," Tachwyr rumbled. They sought the well-stocked sideboard.
Tachwyr reached for Scotch and Flandry for telloch. They caught each
other's glances and laughed, Merseian drumroll and human staccato. "Been
a long while for us both, arrach?"
Flandry noted the inference, that of recent years Tachwyr's work had
brought him into little or no contact with Terrans, for whatever it
might be worth. Likely that wasn't much. The Empire's mulish attitude
toward the aggrandizement of the Roidhunate was by no means the sole
problem which the latter faced. Still, Tachwyr was by way of being an
expert on Homo sapiens; so if a more urgent matter had called him--To be
sure, he might have planned his remark precisely to make his opponent
think along these lines.
"I trust your wives and children enjoy good fortune," Flandry said in
polite Eriau.
"Yes, I thank the God." The formula being completed, Tachwyr went on:
"Chydhwan's married, and Gelch has begun his cadetship. I presume you're
still a bachelor?" He must ask that in Anglic, for his native equivalent
would have been an insult. His jet eyes probed. "Aren't you the gaudy
one, though? What style is that?"
The man extended an arm to
show off colors and embroideries of his
mufti. The plumes bobbed which sprang from an emerald brooch holding his
turban together. "Latest fashion in Dehiwala--on Ramanujan, you know. I
was there a while back. Garb at home has gotten positively drab." He
lifted his glass. "Well, tor ychwei."
"Here's to you," the Merseian responded in Anglic. They drank. The
telloch was thick and bitter-fiery.
Flandry looked outdoors. "Brrr!" he said. "I'm glad this time I won't
need to tramp through that."
"Khraich? I'd hoped we might go on a hunt."
"Don't let me stop you. But if nothing else, my time here is limited. I
must get back. Wouldn't have come at all except for your special
invitation."
Tachwyr studied Flandry. "I never doubted you are busy these days," he
said.
"Yes, jumping around like a probability function in a high wind."
"You do not seem discouraged."
"N-no." Flandry sipped, abruptly brought his gaze around, and stated:
"We're near the end of our troubles. What opposition is left has no real
chance."
"And Hans Molitor will be undisputed Emperor." Tachwyr's relaxation
evaporated. Flandry, who knew him from encounters both adversary and
half friendly since they were fledglings in their services, had rather
expected that. A big, faintly scaled hand clenched on the tumbler of
whisky. "My reason why I wanted this meeting."
"Your reason?" Flandry arched his brows, though he knew Tachwyr felt it
was a particularly grotesque expression.
"Yes. I persuaded my superiors to send your government--Molitor's--the
proposal, and put me in charge of our side. However, if you had not come
yourself, I imagine the conference would have proved as empty as my
datholch claimed it would, when I broached the idea to him."
I can't blame the good datholch, Flandry thought. It does seem ludicrous
on the face of it: discussions between Intelligence officers of rank
below admiral or fodaich, who can't make important
commitments--discussions about how to "resolve mutual difficulties" and
assure the Imperium that the Roidhunate has never had any desire to
interfere in domestic affairs of the Empire--when everybody knows how
gleefully Merseian agents have swarmed through every one of our camps,
trying their eternally damnedest to keep our family fight going.
Of course, Molitor's people couldn't refuse, because this is the first
overt sign that Merseia will recognize him rather than some rival as our
lord, and deal with his agents later on, about matters more real than
this farce.
The intention is no surprise, when he's obviously winning. The surprise
was the form the feeler took--and Tachwyr's note to me. Neither action
felt quite Merseian.
Therefore I had to come.
"Let me guess," Flandry said. "You know I'm close to his Majesty and act
as an odd-job man of his. You and your team hope to sound out me and
mine about him."
Tachwyr nodded. "If he's to be your new leader, stronger than the past
several, we want to know what to expect."
"You must have collected more bits of information on him than there are
stars in the galaxy. And he's not a complex man. And no individual can
do more than throw a small extra vector or two in among the millions
that whipsaw such a big and awkward thing as the Empire toward whatever
destiny it's got."
"He can order actions which have a multiplier effect, for war or peace
between our folk."
"Oh, come off it, chum! No Merseian has a talent for pious wormwords. He
only sounds silly when he tries. As far as you are concerned vis-a-vis
us, diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means." Flandry tossed
off his drink and poured a refill.
"Many Terrans disagree," Tachwyr said slowly.
"My species also has more talent than yours for wishful thinking,"
Flandry admitted. He waved at the cold landscape. "Take this base
itself. For two decades, through every clash and crisis, a beacon
example of cooperation. Right?" He leered. "You know better. Oh,
doubtless most of the scientists who come here are sincere enough in
just wanting to study a remarkable xenological development. Doubtless
they're generally on good personal terms. But they're subsidized--they
have their nice safe demilitarization--for no reason except that both
sides find it convenient to keep a place for secret rendezvous. Neutral
domains like Betelgeuse are so public, and their owners tend to be so
nosy."
He patted the Merseian's back. "Now let's sit down to eat, and afterward
serious drinking, like the cordial enemies we've always been," he urged.
"I don't mind giving you anecdotes to pad out your report. Some of them
may even be true."
The heavy features flushed olive-green. "Do you imply our attempt--not
at final disengagement, granted, but at practical measures of mutual
benefit--do you imply it is either idiotic or else false?"
Flandry sighed. "You disappoint me, Tachwyr. I do believe you've grown
stuffy in your middle age. Instead of continuing the charade, why not
ring up your Chereionite and invite him to join us? I'll bet he and I
are acquainted too."}
{The sun went down and night leaped forth in stars almost space-bright,
crowding the dark, making the winter world glow as if it had a moon.
"May I turn off the interior lights?" Aycharaych asked. "The outside is
too glorious for them."
Flandry agreed. The hawk profile across the table from him grew
indistinct, save for great starlight-catching eyes. The voice sang and
purred onward, soft as the cognac they shared, in Anglic whose accent
sounded less foreign than archaic.
"I could wish your turban did not cover a mindscreen and powerpack, my
friend. Not merely does the field make an ugliness through my nerves
amidst this frozen serenity; I would fain be in true communion with
you." Aycharaych's chuckle sounded wistful. "That can scarcely be, I
realize, unless you join my cause."
"Or you mine," Flandry said.
"And each of your men who might know something I would like to learn is
likewise screened against me. Does not that apparatus on their heads
make sleep difficult? I warn you in any case, wear the things not
overmany days at a stretch. Even for a race like yours, it is ill to
keep the brain walled off from those energies which inspirit the
universe, behind a screen of forces that themselves must roil your
dreams."
"I see no reason for us to stay."
Aycharaych inhaled from his glass. He had not touched the liquor yet. "I
would be happy for your company," he said. "But I understand. The
consciousness that dreary death will in a few more decades fold this
brightly checkered game board whereon you leap and capture--that keeps
you ever in haste."
He leaned back, gazed out at a tree turned into a jewel by icicles, and
was quiet awhile. Flandry reached for a cigarette, remembered the
Chereionite disliked tobacco smoke, and soothed himself with a swallow.
"It may be the r
oot of your greatness as a race," Aycharaych mused.
"Could a St. Matthew Passion have welled from an immortal Bach? Could a
Rembrandt who knew naught of sorrow and had no need for steadfastness in
it have brought those things alive by a few daubs of paint? Could a Tu
Fu free of loss have been the poet of dead leaves flying amidst snow,
cranes departing, or an old parrot shabby in its cage? What depth does
the foreknowledge of doom give to your loves?"
He turned his head to face the man. His tone lightened: "Well. Now that
poor mortified Tachwyr is gone--most mightily had he looked forward to
the sauce which gloating would put on his dinner!--we can talk freely.
How did you deduce the truth?"
"Part hunch," Flandry confessed. "The more I thought about that message,
the more suggestions of your style I found. Then logic took over. Plain
to see, the Merseians had some ulterior motive in asking for a
conference as nugatory per se as this. It could be just a signal to us,
and an attempt at sounding out Molitor's prospective regime a bit. But
for those purposes it was clumsy and inadequate. And why go to such
trouble to bring me here?
"Well, I'm not privy to high strategic secrets, but I'm close enough to
him that I must have a fair amount of critical information--the kind
which'll be obsolete inside a year, but if used promptly could help
Merseia keep our kettle longer on the boil, with that much more harm to
us. And I have a freer hand than anybody else who's so well briefed; I