Poul Anderson: Ensign Flandry

“Nuclear,” he said. “This thing out on Starkad isn’t any common frontier squabble. Been touted as such, and quite a few people honestly believe it is. But they’ve only seen reports filtered through a hundred offices, each one bound to gloss over facts that don’t make its own job look so fiery important. I’ve collected raw data and had my own computations run. Conservative extrapolation gives a forty per cent chance of war with Merseia inside five years. And I mean war, the kind which could get total. You don’t bet those odds, do you, now?”

“No,” she whispered.

“I’m s’posed to go there on a fact-findin’ mission and report back to the Emperor. Then the bureaucracy may start grindin’ through the preliminaries to negotiation. Or it may not; some powerful interests’d like to see the conflict go on. But at best, things’ll escalate meanwhile. A settlement’ll get harder and harder to reach, maybe impossible.

“What I want to do is bypass the whole wretched process. I want plenipotentiary authority to go direct from Starkad to Merseia and try negotiatin’ the protocol of an agreement. I think it can be done. They’re rational bein’s too, y’ know. S’pose many of ’em’re lookin’ for some way out of the quicksand. I can offer one.” He straightened. “At least I can try.”

She sat quiet. “I understand,” she said at length. “Of course I’ll cooperate.”

“Good girl.”

She leaned a little toward him. “Mark—”

“What?” His goal stood silhouetted against a crimson sheet.

“Oh, never mind.” She sat back, smoothed her gown, and stared out at the ocean.

The Coral Palace was built on an atoll, which it engulfed even as its towers made their crooked leap skyward. Cars flittered about like fireflies. Hauksberg’s set down on a flange as per GCA, let him and Alicia out, and took off for a parking raft. They walked past bowing slaves and saluting guardsmen, into an antechamber of tall waterspout columns where guests made a shifting rainbow, and so to the ballroom entrance.

“Lord Markus Hauksberg, Viscount of Ny Kalmar, Second Minister of Extra-Imperial Affairs, and Lady Hauksberg!” cried the stentor.

The ballroom was open to the sky, beneath a clear dome. Its sole interior lighting was ultraviolet. Floor, furnishings, orchestral instruments, tableware, food shone with the deep pure colors of fluorescence. So did the clothing of the guests, their protective skinpaint and eyelenses. The spectacle was intense, rippling ruby, topaz, emerald, sapphire, surmounted by glowing masks and tresses, against night. Music lilted through the air with the scent of roses.

Crown Prince Josip was receiving. He had chosen to come in dead black. His hands and the sagging face floated green, weirdly disembodied; his lenses smoldered red. Hauksberg bowed and Alicia bent her knee. “Your Highness.”

“Ah. Pleased to see you. Don’t see you often.”

“Press of business, your Highness. The loss is ours.”

“Yes. Understand you’re going away.”

“The Starkad affair, your Highness.”

“What? … Oh, yes. That. How dreadfully serious and constructive. I do hope you can relax with us here.”

“We look forward to doin’ so, your Highness, though I’m ’fraid we’ll have to leave early.”

“Hmph.” Josip half turned.

He mustn’t be offended. “Goes without sayin’ we both regret it the worst,” Hauksberg purred. “Might I beg for another invitation on my return?”

“Well, really!”

“I’ll be even more bold. My nephew’s comin’ to Terra. Frontier lad, y’ know, but as far as I can tell from stereos and letters, quite a delightful boy. If he could actually meet the heir apparent of the Empire—why, better’n a private audience with God.”

“Well. Well, you don’t say. Of course. Of course.” Josip beamed as he greeted the next arrival.

“Isn’t that risky?” Alicia asked when they were out of earshot.

“Not for my nephew,” Hauksberg chuckled. “Haven’t got one. And dear Josip’s memory is rather notoriously short.”

He often wondered what would become of the Empire when that creature mounted the throne. But at least Josip was weak. If, by then, the Policy Board was headed by a man who understood the galactic situation … He bent and kissed his lady’s hand. “Got to drift off, m’dear. Enjoy yourself. With luck, things’ll still be fairly decorous when we dare scoot off.”

A new dance was called and Alicia was swept away by an admiral. He was not so old, and his decorations showed that he had seen outplanet service. Hauksberg wondered if she would return home tonight.

He maneuvered to the wall, where the crowd was thinner, and worked his way along. There was scant time to admire the view above the dome’s rim, though it was fantastic. The sea marched ashimmer beneath a low moon. Long waves broke intricately, virginally white on the outer ramparts; he thought he could hear them growl. The darkness enclosed by the Lunar crescent was pinpointed with city lights. The sky illumination had now formed a gigantic banner overhead, the Sunburst alive in a field of royal blue as if stratospheric winds bugled salute. Not many stars shone through so much radiance.

But Hauksberg identified Regulus, beyond which his mission lay, and Rigel, which burned in the heart of the Merseian dominions. He shivered. When he reached the champagne table, a glass was very welcome. “Good evening,” said a voice.

Hauksberg exchanged bows with a portly man wearing a particolored face. Lord Advisor Petroff was not exactly in his element at a festival like this. He jerked his head slightly. Hauksberg nodded. They gossipped a little and drifted apart. Hauksberg was detained by a couple of bores and so didn’t manage to slip out the rear and catch a gravshaft downward for some while.

The others sat in a small, sealed office. They were seven, the critical ones on the Policy Board: gray men who bore the consciousness of power like added flesh. Hauksberg made the humility salute. “My sincere apologies for keepin’ my lords waitin’,” he said.

“No matter,” Petroff said. “I’ve been explaining the situation.”

“We haven’t seen any data or computations, though,” da Fonseca said. “Did you bring them, Lord Hauksberg?”

“No, sir. How could I? Every microreader in the palace is probably bugged.” Hauksberg drew a breath. “My lords, you can examine the summation at leisure, once I’m gone. The question is, will you take my word and Lord Petroff’s for the moment? If matters are as potentially serious as I believe, then you must agree a secret negotiator should be dispatched. If, on t’other hand, Starkad has no special significance, what have we lost by settlin’ the dispute on reasonable terms?”

“Prestige,” Chardon said. “Morale. Credibility, the next time we have to counter a Merseian move. I might even be so archaic as to mention honor.”

“I don’t propose to compromise any vital interest,” Hauksberg pleaded, “and in all events, whatever concord I may reach’ll have to be ratified here. My lords, we can’t be gone long without someone noticin’. But if you’ll listen—”

He launched his speech. It had been carefully prepared. It had better be. These six men, with Petroff, controlled enough votes to swing a decision his way. Were they prevailed on to call a privy meeting tomorrow, with a loaded quorum, Hauksberg would depart with the authority he needed.

Otherwise … No, he mustn’t take himself too seriously. Not at the present stage of his career. But men were dying on Starkad.

In the end, he won. Shaking, sweat running down his ribs, he leaned on the table and scarcely heard Petroff say, “Congratulations. Also, good luck. You’ll need plenty of that.”