Poul Anderson: Ensign Flandry

Ferok lifted a telescope and swept it around an arc. That was a native invention. Kursoviki was the center of the planet’s most advanced land culture. “No sign of anything yet,” he said. “Do you think yon Outsider flyboat may attack us?”

“I doubt that,” Flandry said. “Most likely it was simply on hand because of having brought some Merseian advisors, and shot at me because I might be carrying instruments which would give me a clue as to what’s going on down below. It’s probably returned to Kimraig by now.” He hesitated before continuing: “The Merseians, like us, seldom take a direct role in any action, and then nearly always just as individual officers, not representatives of their people. Neither of us wishes to provoke a response in kind.”

“Afraid?” Lips curled back from fangs.

“On your account,” Flandry said, somewhat honestly. “You have no dream of what our weapons can do to a world.”

“World … hunh, the thought’s hard to seize. Well, let the Sisterhood try. I’m happy to be a plain male.”

Flandry turned and looked across the deck. The Archer was a big ship by Starkadian measure, perhaps five hundred tons, broad in the beam, high in the stern, a carven post at the prow as emblem of her tutelary spirit. A deckhouse stood amidships, holding galley, smithy, carpenter shop, and armory. Everything was gaudily painted. Three masts carried yellow square sails aloft, fore-and-aft beneath; at the moment she was tacking on the latter and a genoa. The crew were about their duties on deck and in the rigging. They numbered thirty male hands and half a dozen female officers. The ship had been carrying timber and spices from Ujanka port down the Chain archipelago.

“What armament have we?” he asked.

“Our Terran deck gun,” Ferok told him. “Five of your rifles. We were offered more, but Dragoika said they’d be no use till we had more people skilled with them. Otherwise, swords, pikes, crossbows, knives, belaying pins, teeth, and nails.” He gestured at the mesh which passed from side to side of the hull, under the keel. “If that twitches much, could mean a Siravo trying to put a hole in our bottom. Then we dive after him. You’d be best for that, with your gear.”

Flandry winced. His helmet was adjustable for underwater; on Starkad, the concentration of dissolved oxygen was almost as high as in Terra’s air. But he didn’t fancy a scrap with a being evolved for such an environment.

“Why are you here, yourself?” Ferok asked conversationally. “Pleasure or plunder?”

“Neither. I was sent.” Flandry didn’t add that the Navy reckoned it might as well use Starkad to give certain promising young officers some experience. “Promising” made him sound too immature. At once he realized he’d actually sounded unaggressive and prevaricated in haste: “Of course, with the chance of getting into a fight, I would have asked to go anyway.”

“They tell me your females obey males. True?”

“Well, sometimes.” The second mate passed by and Flandry’s gaze followed her. She had curves, a tawny mane rippling down her back, breasts standing fuller and firmer than any girl could have managed without technological assistance, and a nearly humanoid nose. Her clothing consisted of some gold bracelets. But her differences from the Terran went deeper than looks. She didn’t lactate; those nipples fed blood directly to her infants. And hers was the more imaginative, more cerebral sex, not subordinated in any culture, dominant in the islands around Kursoviki. He wondered if that might trace back to something as simple as the female body holding more blood and more capacity to regenerate it.

“But who, then, keeps order in your home country?” Ferok wondered. “Why haven’t you killed each other off?”

“Um-m-m, hard to explain,” Flandry said. “Let me first see if I understand your ways, to compare mine. For instance, you owe nothing to the place where you live, right? I mean, no town or island or whatever is ruled, as a ship is … right? Instead—at any rate in this part of the world—the females are organized into associations like the Sisterhood, whose members may live anywhere, which even have their special languages. They own all important property and make all important decisions through those associations. Thus disputes among males have little effect on them. Am I right?”

“I suppose so. You might have put it more politely.”

“Apology-of-courage is offered. I am a stranger. Now among my people—”

A shout fell from the crow’s nest. Ferok whirled and pointed his telescope. The crew sprang to the starboard rail, clustered in the shrouds, and yelled.

Dragoika bounded from the captain’s cabin under the poop. She held a four-pronged fish spear in one hand, a small painted drum beneath her arm. Up the ladder she went, to stand by the quartermistress at the wheel and look for herself. Then, coolly, she tapped her drum on one side, plucked the steel strings across the recessed head on the other. Twang and thump carried across noise like a bugle call. All hands to arms and battle stations!

“The vaz-Siravo!” Ferok shouted above clamor. “They’re on us!” He made for the deckhouse. Restored to discipline, the crew were lining up for helmets, shields, byrnies, and weapons.

Flandry strained his eyes into the glare off the water. A score or so blue dorsal fins clove it, converging on the ship. And suddenly, a hundred meters to starboard, a submarine rose.

A little, crude thing, doubtless home-built to a Merseian design—for if you want to engineer a planet-wide war among primitives, you should teach them what they can make and do for themselves. The hull was greased leather stretched across a framework of some undersea equivalent of wood. Harness trailed downward to the four fish which pulled it; he could barely discern them as huge shadows under the surface. The deck lay awash. But an outsize catapult projected therefrom. Several dolphin-like bodies with transparent globes on their heads and powerpacks on their backs crouched alongside. They rose onto flukes and flippers; their arms reached to swing the machine around.

“Dommaneek!” Dragoika screeched. “Dommaneek Falan-daree! Can you man ours?”

“Aye, aye!” The Terran ran prow-ward. Planks rolled and thudded beneath his feet.

On the forward deck, the two females whose duty it was were trying to unlimber the gun. They worked slowly, getting in each other’s way, spitting curses. There hadn’t yet been time to drill many competent shots, even with a weapon as simple as this, a rifle throwing 38 mm. chemical shells. Before they got the range, that catapult might—

“Gangway!” Flandry shoved the nearest aside. She snarled and swatted at him with long red nails. Dragoika’s drum rippled an order. Both females fell back from him.

He opened the breech, grabbed a shell from the ammo box, and dogged it in. The enemy catapult thumped. A packet arced high, down again, made a near miss and burst into flame which spread crimson and smoky across the waves. Some version of Greek fire—undersea oil wells—Flandry put his eye to the range finder. He was too excited to be scared. But he must lay the gun manually. A hydraulic system would have been too liable to breakdown. In spite of good balance and self-lubricating bearings, the barrel swung with nightmare slowness. The Seatrolls were rewinding their catapult … before Andromeda, they were fast! They must use hydraulics.

Dragoika spoke to the quartermistress. She put the wheel hard over. Booms swung over the deck. The jib flapped thunderous until crewmales reset the sheets. The Archer came about. Flandry struggled to compensate. He barely remembered to keep one foot on the brake, lest his gun travel too far. Bet those she-cats would’ve forgotten. The enemy missile didn’t make the vessel’s superstructure as intended. But it struck the hull amidships. Under this oxygen pressure, fire billowed heavenward.