Poul Anderson: A Circus of Hells

Merseians and Ruadrath swiveled about where they tail-sat. They were at the far end of the single chamber, their parties on opposite daises. A fleeting part of Flandry noticed how vivid the murals were at their backs and regretted that he was about to lose the friendship of the artist.

Djana cried out. Rrinn hissed. Ydwyr uttered a sentence in no language the man had heard before. Several males of either species started off the platforms. Flandry brandished his blaster and shouted in Eriau: “Stay where you are! This thing’s set to wide beam! I can cook the lot of you in two shots!”

Tensed and snarling, they returned to their places. Djana remained standing, reaching toward Flandry, mouth open and working but no sound coming forth. Ydwyr snapped into his vocalizer. Rrinn snapped back. The Terran could guess: “What is this treachery?”

“Indeed we had him alive; yet I know not what he would seize.”

He interrupted: “I regret I must stun you. No harm will be done, aside from possible headaches when you awaken. If anyone tries to attack me, I’ll blast him. The blast will likely kill others. Rrinn, I give you a few breaths to tell your followers this.”

“You wouldn’t!” Djana protested wildly.

“Not to you, sweetheart,” Flandry said, while Ruadrath words spat around him. “Come over here by me.”

She gulped, clenched fists, straightened and regarded him squarely. “No.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t turn my coat like you.”

“I wasn’t aware I had.” Flandry glared at Ydwyr. “What have you done to her?”

“I showed her truth,” the Merseian answered. He had regained his calm. “What do you expect to accomplish?”

“You’ll see,” Flandry told him. To Rrinn: “Are you finished?”

“Ssnaga. ” No matter the Ruad was of another species; you could not mistake unutterable hatred.

Flandry sighed. “I grieve. We traveled well together. Good hunting be yours for always.”

The guide ray struck and struck. The Ruadrath scuttled for shelter, but found nothing high enough. The Merseians took their medicine with iron dignity. After a minute, none among them was conscious save Ydwyr and Djana.

“Now.” Flandry tossed her the loop of cord. “Tie his wrists at his back, run his tail up there and make it fast, then pass down the end and hobble him.”

“No!” she shrieked.

“Girl,” said the gaunt, sun-darkened, wounded visage with the frost in its beard, “more’s involved than my life, and I’m fond of living to start with. I need a hostage. I’d prefer not to drag him. If I have to, though, I’ll knock you both out.”

“Obey,” Ydwyr told her. He considered Flandry. “Well done,” he said. “What is the next stage of your plan?”

“No comment,” the man replied. “I don’t wish to be discourteous, but what you don’t know you can’t arrange to counteract.”

“Correct. It becomes clear that your prior achievements were no result of luck. My compliments, Dominic Flandry.”

“I thank the datholch. Get cracking, woman!”

Djana’s gaze went bewildered between them. She struggled not to cry.

Her job of tying was less than expert; but Flandry, who supervised, felt Ydwyr couldn’t work out of it fast. When she was through, he beckoned her to him. “I want our playmate beyond your reach,” he said. Looking down into the blue eyes, he smiled. There was no immediate need now to aim a gun. He laid both hands on her waist. “And I want you in my reach.”

“Nicky,” she whispered, “you don’t know what you’re doing. Please, please listen.”

“Later.” A sonic boom made pots jump on a shelf. In spite of the dictatorship he had clamped down on himself, something leaped likewise in Flandry. “Hoy, that’s my ticket home.”

He peered past the curtain. Yes, Giacobini-Zinner, dear needle-nosed Jake, bulleting groundward, hovering, settling in a whirl of kicked-up snow…Wait! Far off in the sky whence she’d come—

Flandry groaned. It looked like another spacecraft. Morioch or somebody had played cautious and sent an escort.

Well, he’d reckoned with that possibility. A Comet had the legs over most other types, if not all; and in an atmosphere, especially Talwin’s—

The lock opened. The gangway extruded. A Merseian appeared, presumably a physician since he carried the medikit he must have ferreted out on his way here. He wasn’t wearing an electric coldsuit, only Navy issue winter clothes. Suddenly it was comical beyond belief to see him stand there, glancing puzzled around, with his tail in a special stocking. Flandry had seldom worked harder than to hold back whoops and yell, in his best unaided imitation of a Merseian voice: “Come here! On the double! Your pilot too!”

“Pilot—”

“Hurry!”

The doctor called into the boat. Both Merseians descended and started across the ground. Flandry stood bowstring-tense, squinting out the slit between jamb and curtain, back to the captives he already had, out, in, out, in. If somebody got suspicious or somebody shouted a warning before the newcomers were in stunbeam range, he’d have to blast them dead and attempt a dash for the vessel.

They entered. He zapped them.

Recovering the medikit, he waved his gun. “Let’s go, Ydwyr.” He hesitated. “Djana, you can stay if you want.”

“No,” the girl answered, nigh too weakly to hear. “I’ll come.”

“Best not,” Ydwyr counseled. “The danger is considerable. We deal with a desperate being.”

“Maybe I can help you,” Djana said.

“Your help would be to Merseia,” Ydwyr reproved her.

Flandry pounced. “That’s what you are to him, girl,” he exclaimed in Anglic. “A tool for his damned planet.” In Eriau: “Move, you!”

The girl shook her head blindly. It wasn’t clear which of them she meant. Forlorn, she trudged out behind the tall nonhuman figure, in front of the man’s weapon.

High and distant, little more in the naked eye than a glint, the enemy ship held her position. Magniscreens would reveal that three left the house for the boat—but not their species, Flandry hoped. Just three sent out to fetch something…The gangway clattered to boots.

“Aft,” Flandry directed. “Sorry,” he said when they were at the bunks, and stunned Ydwyr. He used the cord to secure his captive and urged Djana forward. Her lips, her whole slight body trembled.

“What will you do?” she pleaded.

“Try to escape,” Flandry said. “You mean there’s a different game going?”

She sank into the seat beside his control chair. He buckled her in, more as a precaution against impulsive behavior than against a failure of interior grav, and assumed his own place. She stared blankly at him. “You don’t understand,” she kept repeating. “He’s good, he’s wise, you’re making such a terrible mistake, please don’t.”

“You want me brainscrubbed, then?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. Let me alone!” Flandry forgot her while he checked the indicators. Everything seemed in order, no deterioration, no vandalism, no boobytraps. He brought the engine murmurous to life. The gangway retracted, the airlock shut. Goodbye, Talwin. Goodbye, existence? We’ll see. He tickled the console. The skill had not left his fingers. Jake floated aloft. The village receded, the geysers, the mountains, he was skyborne.

The outercom blinked and buzzed. Flandry ignored it till he was lined out northward. The other spacecraft swung about and swooped after him. Several kilometers off, she proved to be a corvette, no capital ship but one that could eat a scoutboat for breakfast. Flandry accepted her call.

“Saniau to Terran vessel. Where are you bound and why?”