Poul Anderson: Ensign Flandry

“And if Runei ordered a return raid?” Hauksberg challenged.

“He didn’t, my lord.”

“Not yet. Bit of evidence for Merseia’s conciliatory attitude, what? Or could be my presence influenced Runei. One day soon, though, if these skirmishes continue, a real escalation will set in. Then everybody’ll have the devil’s personal job controllin’ the degree of escalation. Might fail. The time to stop was yesterday.”

“Seems to me Merseia’s escalated quite a big hunk, starting operations this near our main base.”

“The seafolk have done so. They had Merseian help, no doubt, but it’s their war and the landfolk’s. No one else’s.”

Abrams savaged a cold cigar. “My lord,” he growled, “sea-folk and landfolk alike are divided into thousands of communities, scores of civilizations. Many never heard of each other before. The dwellers in the Zletovar were nothing but a nuisance to the Kursovikians, till now. So who gave them the idea of mounting a concerted attack? Who’s gradually changing what was a stable situation into a planet-wide war of race against race? Merseia!”

“You overreach yourself, Commander,” said Captain Abd-es-Salem reluctantly. The viscount’s aides looked appalled.

“No, no.” Hauksberg smiled into the angry brown face confronting him. “I appreciate frankness. Terra’s got quite enough sycophants without exportin’ ’em. How can I find facts as I’m s’posed to without listenin’? Waiter, refill—Commander Abrams’ glass.”

“Just what are the, ah, opposition doing in local waters?” inquired a civilian.

Abrams shrugged. “We don’t know. Kursovikian ships have naturally begun avoiding that area. We could try sending divers, but we’re holding off. You see, Ensign Flandry did more than have an adventure. More, yet, than win a degree of respect and good will among the Tigeries that’ll prove useful to us. He’s gathered information about them we never had before, details that escaped the professional xenologists, and given me the data as tightly organized as a limerick. Above the lot, he delivered a live Seatroll prisoner.”

Hauksberg lit a cheroot. “I gather that’s unusual?”

“Yes, sir, for obvious environmental reasons as well as because the Tigeries normally barbecue any they take.”

Persis d’Io grimaced. “Did you say you like them?” she scolded Flandry.

“Might be hard for a civilized being to understand, Donna,” Abrams drawled. “We prefer nuclear weapons that can barbecue entire planets. Point is, though, our lad here thought up gadgets to keep that Seatroll in health, things a smith and carpenter could make aboard ship. I better not get too specific, but I’ve got hopes about the interrogation.”

“Why not tell us?” Hauksberg asked. “Surely you don’t think anyone here is a Merseian in disguise.”

“Probably not,” Abrams said. “However, you people are bound on to the enemy’s home planet. Diplomatic mission or no, I can’t impose the risk on you of carrying knowledge they’d like to have.”

Hauksberg laughed. “I’ve never been called a blabbermouth more tactfully.”

Persis interrupted. “No arguments, please, darling. I’m too anxious to hear Ensign Flandry.”

“You’re on, son,” Abrams said.

They took loungers. Flandry received a goldleaf-tipped cigaret from Persis’ own fingers. Wine and excitement bubbled in him. He made the tale somewhat better than true: sufficient to drive Abrams into a coughing fit.

“—and so, one day out of Ujanka, we met a ship that could put in a call for us. A flier took me and the prisoner off.”

Persis sighed. “You make it sound such fun. Have you seen your friends again since?”

“Not yet, Donna. I’ve been too busy working with Commander Abrams.” In point of fact, he had done the detail chores of data correlation on a considerably lower level. “I’ve been temporarily assigned to his section. I do have an invitation to visit down in Ujanka, and imagine I’ll be ordered to accept.”

“Right,” Captain Menotti said. “One of our problems has been that, while the Sisterhood accepts our equipment and some of our advice, they’ve remained wary of us. Understandable, when we’re so foreign to them, and when their own Seatroll neighbors were never a real menace. We’ve achieved better liaison with less developed Starkadian cultures. Kursoviki is too proud, too jealous of its privacies, I might say too sophisticated, to take us as seriously as we’d like. Here we may have an entering wedge.”

“And also in your prisoner,” Hauksberg said thoughtfully. “Want to see him.”

“What?” Abrams barked. “Impossible!”

“Why?”

“Why—that is—”

“Wouldn’t fulfill my commission if I didn’t,” Hauksberg said. “I must insist.” He leaned forward. “You see, could be this is a wedge toward somethin’ still more important. Peace.”

“How so … my lord?”

“If you pump him as dry’s I imagine you plan, you’ll find out a lot about his culture. They won’t be the faceless enemy, they’ll be real bein’s with real needs and desires. He can accompany an envoy of ours to his people. We can—not unthinkable, y’ know—we can p’rhaps head off this latest local war. Negotiate a peace between the Kursovikians and their neighbors.”

“Or between lions and lambs?” Abrams snapped. “How do you start? They’d never come near any submarine of ours.”

“Go out in native ships, then.”

“We haven’t the men for it. Damn few humans know how to operate a windjammer these days, and sailing on Starkad is a different art anyhow. We should get Kursovikians to take us on a peace mission? Ha!”

“What if their chum here asked ’em? Don’t you think that might be worth a try?”

“Oh!” Persis, who sat beside him, laid a hand over Flandry’s. “If you could—”

Under those eyes, he glowed happily and said he would be delighted. Abrams gave him a bleak look. “If ordered, of course,” he added in a hurry.

“I’ll discuss the question with your superiors,” Hauksberg said. “But gentlemen, this is s’posed to be a social evenin’. Forget business and have another drink or ten, eh?”

His gossip from Terra was scandalous and comical. “Darling,” Persis said, “you mustn’t cynicize our guest of honor. Let’s go talk more politely, Ensign.”

“W-w-with joy, Donna.”

The suite was interior, but a viewscreen gave on the scene outside. Snowfall had stopped; mountaintops lay gaunt and white beneath the moons. Persis shivered. “What a dreadful place. I pray we can bring you home soon.”

He was emboldened to say, “I never expected a, uh, highborn and, uh, lovely lady to come this long, dull, dangerous way.”

She laughed. “I highborn? But thanks. You’re sweet.” Her lashes fluttered. “If I can help my lord by traveling with him … how could I refuse? He’s working for Terra. So are you. So should I. All of us together, wouldn’t that be best?” She laughed again. “I’m sorry to be the only girl here. Would your officers mind if we danced a little?”

He went back to quarters with his head afloat. Nonetheless, next day he gave Jan van Zuyl a good bottle’s worth.

At the center of a soundproofed room, whose fluoros glared with Saxo light, the Siravo floated in a vitryl tank surrounded by machines.

He was big, 210 centimeters in length and thick of body. His skin was glabrous, deep blue on the back, paler greenish blue on the stomach, opalescent on the gillcovers. In shape he suggested a cross between dolphin, seal, and man. But the flukes, and the two flippers near his middle, were marvels of musculature with some prehensile capability. A fleshy dorsal fin grew above. Not far behind the head were two short, strong arms; except for vestigial webs, the hands were startlingly humanlike. The head was big and golden of eyes, blunt of snout, with quivering cilia flanking a mouth that had lips.