Poul Anderson: A Circus of Hells

“I was free,” she said frantically. “I followed my master.”

“Odd juxtaposition, that.” A buzzer sounded. “ ’Scuse, I got work. We go primary in half a shake. I’ve programmed the autopilot, but in conditions this tricky I want to ride herd on it.”

“Primary?” Dismay washed through her. “They’ll catch you right away!” That’s good. Isn’t it?

The engine note changed. Star images vanished till the screens readapted. At true speed, limited by light’s, the boat plunged on. Power chanted abaft the cabin; she was changing her kinetic velocity at maximum thrust.

Blink…blink…blink…The blood-colored beacon glowed ever brighter. Yet Djana could look directly into it, and she did not find any disc. Stars frosted the night around. Which way was the Empire?

Flandry had given himself back to the machines. Twice he made a manual adjustment.

After minutes wherein Djana begged God to restore Merseian courage to her, the noise and vibration stopped. Head full of it, she didn’t instantly recognize its departure. Then she bit her tongue to keep from imploring a word.

When Flandry gave her one, she started shivering.

He spoke calmly, as if these were the lost days when they two had fared after treasure. “We’re in the slot, near’s I can determine. Let’s relax and give the universe our job for a bit.”

“Wh-wh-what are we doing?”

“We’re falling free, in a hyperbolic orbit around the pulsar. The Merseians aren’t. They’re distributing themselves to cover the region. They can’t venture as close as us. The potential of so monstrous a mass in so small a volume, you see; differential forces would wreck their ships. The boat’s less affected, being of smaller dimensions. With the help of the interior field—the same that gives us artificial gravity and counteracts acceleration pressure—she ought to stay in one piece. The Merseians doubtless figure to wait till we kick in our hyperdrive again, and resume the chivvy.”

“But what’re we getting?” Blink…blink…blink… Had his winter exile driven him crazy?

“We’ll pass through the fringes of a heavily warped chunk of space. The mass concentration deforms it. If the core got much denser, light itself couldn’t break loose. We won’t be under any such extreme condition, but I don’t expect they can track us around periastron. Our emission will be too scattered; radar beams will curve off at silly angles. The Merseians can compute roughly where and when we’ll return to flatter space, but until we do—” Flandry had unharnessed himself while he talked. Rising, he stretched prodigiously, muscle by muscle. “ A propos Merseians, let’s go check on old Ydwyr.”

Djana fumbled with her own buckles. “I, I, I don’t track you, Nicky,” she stammered. “What do we…you gain more than time? Why did you take us aboard?”

“As to your first question, the answer’s a smidge technical. As to the second, well, Ydwyr’s the reason we’ve come this far. Without him, we’d’ve been in a missile barrage.” Flandry walked around behind her chair. “Here, let me assist.”

“You! You’re not unfastening me!”

“No, I’m not, am I?” he said dreamily. Leaning over, he nuzzled her where throat met shoulder. The kiss that followed brought a breathless giddiness which had not quite faded when he led the way aft.

Ydwyr sat patient on a bunk. Prior to sleeping, Flandry had welded a short length of light cable to the frame, the other end around an ankle, and untied the rope. It wasn’t a harsh confinement. In fact, the man would have to keep wits and gun ready when negotiating this passage.

“Have you been listening to our conversation?” he asked. “I left the intercom on.”

“You are thanked for your courtesy,” Ydwyr replied, “but I could not follow the Anglic.”

“Oh!” Djana’s hand went to her mouth. “I forgot—”

“And I,” Flandry admitted. “We Terrans tend to assume every educated being will know our official language—by definition—and of course it isn’t so. Well, I can tell you.”

“I believe I have deduced it,” Ydwyr said. “You are swinging free, dangerously but concealingly near the pulsar. From the relativistic region you will launch your courier torpedoes, strapped together and hyperdrives operating simultaneously. What with distortion effects, you hope my folk will mistake the impulses for this boat’s and give chase. If your decoy lures them as far as a light-year off, you will be outside their hyperwave detection range and can embark on a roundabout homeward voyage. The sheer size of space will make it unlikely that they, backtracking, will pick up your vibrations.”

“Right,” Flandry said admiringly. “You’re a sharp rascal. I look forward to some amusing chit-chat.”

“If your scheme succeeds,” Ydwyr made a salute of respect. “If not, and if we are taken alive, you are under my protection.”

Gladness burst in Djana. My men can be friends!

“You are kind,” said Flandry with a bow. He turned to the girl. “How about making us a pot of tea?” he said in Anglic.

“Tea?” she asked, astonished.

“He likes it. Let’s be hospitable. Put the galley intercom on—low—and you can hear us talk.”

Flandry spoke lightly, but she felt an underlining of his last sentence and all at once her joy froze. Though why, why?

“Would…the datholch… accept tea?” she asked in Eriau.

“You are thanked.” Ydwyr spoke casually, more interested in the man. Djana went forward like an automaton. The voices trailed her:

“I am less kind, Dominic Flandry, than I am concerned to keep an audacious and resourceful entity functional.”

“For a servant?”

“Khraich, we cannot well send you home, can we? I—”

Djana made a production of closing the galley door. It cut off the words. Fingers unsteady, she turned the intercom switch.

“—sorry. You mean well by your standards, I suppose, Ydwyr. But I have this archaic prejudice for freedom over even the nicest slavery. Like the sort you fastened on that poor girl.”

“A reconditioning. It improved her both physically and mentally.”

No! He might be speaking of an animal!

“She does seem more, hm, balanced. It’s just a seeming, however, as long as you keep that father-image hood over her eyes.”

“Hr-r-r, you have heard of Aycharaych’s techniques, then?”

“Aycharaych? Who? N-n-no…I’ll check with Captain Abrams…Damn! I should have played along with you, shouldn’t I? All right, I fumbled that one, after you dropped it right into my paws. Getting back to Djana, the father fixation is unmistakable to any careful outside observer.”

“What else would you have me do? She came, an unwitting agent who had acquired knowledge which must not get back to Terra. She showed potentialities. Instead of killing her out of hand, we could try to develop them. Death is always available. Besides, depth-psychological work on a human intrigued me. Later, when that peculiar gift for sometimes imposing her desires on other minds appeared, we saw what a prize we had. My duty became to make sure of her.”

“So to win her trust, you warned her to warn me?”

“Yes. About—in honesty between us, Dominic Flandry—a fictitious danger. No orders had come for your removal; I was welcome to keep you. But the chance to clinch it with her was worth more.”

Anglic: “No? I’ll—be—especially—damned.”

“You are not angry, I hope.”

“N-n-no. That’d be unsporting, wouldn’t it?” Anglic: “The more so when it caused me to break from my cell with a hell of a yell far sooner than I’d expected to.”