Poul Anderson: A Circus of Hells

“I will not. You are too competent. My duty is to kill you if I can.” He smiled. “With that made clear, would you like a game of chess?”

Mining continued here and there in the system to which Irumclaw belonged. Hence small human colonies persisted, with mostly floating populations that weren’t given to inconvenient curiosity or to gossiping with officialdom about what they might have seen.

Jake put briefly down in a spaceport on the fourth world out. It was a spot of shabbiness set in the middle of an immense rusty desert. The atmosphere was not breathable, and barely thick enough to blow dust clouds into a purple sky. A gangtube reached forth to connect airlock with airdome. Flandry escorted Djana to the exit.

“You’ll be through soon?” she asked wistfully. For a moment the small slender form in the modest gown, the fine-boned features, eyes like blue lakes, lips slightly parted and aquiver, made him forget what had passed between them and think of her as a child. He had always been a sucker for little girls.

“Soon’s I can,” he answered. “Probably under a week. But do lie doggo till you hear from me. It’s essential we report jointly to Leon Ammon. Those credits you brought with you ought to stretch. Check the general message office daily. When my ’gram comes, go ahead and shoot him word to have somebody fetch you. I’ll be standing by.” He kissed her more lightly than had been his wont. “Cheers, partner.”

Her response was feverish. “Partners, yes!” she said afterward, in an unsteady tone. A tear broke away. She turned and walked fast from the airlock. Flandry went back to the conn and requested immediate clearance for takeoff.

Above his gorgeous tunic, Admiral Julius wore the least memorable face that Flandry had ever seen. “Well!” he said. “Quite a story, Lieutenant. Quite a story.”

“Yes, sir,” Flandry responded. He stood beside Ydwyr, who tail-sat at ease—if with ill-concealed contempt for the ornate office—in a robe that had been hastily improvised for him. His winter garb being unsuitable for shipboard, he had traveled nude and debarked thus on Irumclaw; and you don’t receive princes of the blood in their nakedness.

“Ah…indeed.” Julius shuffled some papers on his desk. “As I understand your—your supervisor’s verbal redaction of what you told him—you are writing a report in proper form, are you not?—as I understand it…well, why don’t you tell me yourself?”

“Yes, sir. Cruising on my assigned route, I detected the ‘wake’ of a larger vessel. As per standing orders, I moved closer to establish identification. She was an unmistakable Merseian warcraft. My orders gave me discretion, as the admiral knows, whether to report the sighting in person with no further ado or attempt finding out more. Rightly or wrongly, I decided on the second course. Chances were against another encounter and we might be left with no further leads. I dropped back and sent a courier, which apparently never got here. My report’s going to recommend tightening inspection procedures.

“Well, I shadowed the Merseian at the limits of detectability—for me—which I thought would keep my smaller vessel outside her sensor range. But we entered the range of another ship, a picket, that spotted me, closed in, and made capture. I was brought to the planet Talwin, where the Merseians turned out to have an advanced base. After miscellaneous brouhaha, I escaped via a pulsar, taking this dignitary along for a hostage.”

“Um-m-m, ah.” Julius squinted at Ydwyr. “An awkward affair, yes. They were technically within their rights, building that base, weren’t they? But they had no right to hold an Imperial vessel and an Imperial officer…in a region free by treaty. Um.” It was blatant that he shrank from being caught in the middle of a diplomatic crisis.

“If it please the admiral,” Flandry said, “I speak Eriau. The datholch and I have held some long conversations. Without attempting to make policy or anything, sir—I know I’m forbidden to—I did feel free to suggest a few thoughts. Would the admiral care to have me interpret?” It had turned out the base’s linguistic computer was on the fritz and nobody knew how to fix it.

“Ah…yes. Certainly. Tell his, ah, his highness we consider him a guest of the Imperium. We will try to, ah, show him every courtesy and arrange for his speedy transportation home.”

“He’s physicked anxious to shoot you off and bury this whole affair deep,” Flandry informed Ydwyr. “We can do anything we choose with him.”

“You will proceed according to plan, then?” the scientist inquired. His expression was composed, but Flandry had learned how to recognize a sardonic twinkle in a Merseian eye.

“Knaich, not exactly a plan. The fact of Talwin cannot be hidden. GHQ will see a report and assign an investigator. What we want is to save face all around. You’ve been offered a ride back, as I guessed you would be. Accept it for the earliest possible moment. When you reach Talwin, get Morioch to evacuate his ships and personnel. The planet will be of no further use for intelligence operations anyway; your government’s sure to order them shut down, if our Navy team finds nothing going on but peaceful xenological research, they’ll gloss over what signs are left of extracurricular activity, and nothing will likely be said on either side about this contretemps that you and I were involved in.”

“I have already assented to your making these proposals in my name. Proceed.”

Flandry did, in more tactful language. Julius beamed. If his command was instrumental in halting an undesirable Merseian project, word would circulate among the higher-ups. It would influence promotions, rotation to more promising worlds, yes, yes, no matter how discreetly the affair was handled. A discretion which’ll result in nobody’s caring to notice whatever loose ends dangle out of my story, Flandry thought.

“Excellent, Lieutenant!” Julius said. “My precise idea! Tell his highness I’ll make prompt arrangements.”

Ydwyr said gravely: “I fear the research will not long endure. With no bonus of military advantage—”

“I told you I’d do my best for you,” Flandry answered, “and I’ve been mulling a scheme. Didn’t want to advance it till I was sure we could write our own playbill, but now I am. See, I’ll put on an indignation act for you. Maybe your folk should not have detained me; still, you are of the Vach Urdiolch and my cavalier treatment of you was an insult to the Race. Seeing that he’s avid to please, you’ve decided to milk old Julius. You’ll let yourself be mollified if he’ll strongly urge that the Imperium help support the scientific work which, officially, will have been Merseia’s reason for being on Talwin in the first place.”

The big green body tautened. “Is that possible?”

“I imagine so. We’ll have to keep watch on Talwin from here on anyway, lest your Navy sneak back. It needn’t be from scoutboats, though. A few subsidized students or the like, doing their graduate thesis work, are quite as good and a lot cheaper. And…with us sharing the costs, I daresay you can find money at home to carry on.”

A small renaissance of Terran science? Hardly. Academic hackwork. Oh, I suppose I can indulge in the hope.

“In the name of the God.” Ydwyr stared before him for a length of time that made Julius shift and harrumph. At last he gripped both of Flandry’s hands and said, “From that beginning, our two people working together, what may someday come?”

“Nothing much, except, I do dare hope, a slight reinforcement of the reasons for our hanging onto this frontier. Those Merseians may keep us reminded who’s always ready to fill any available vacuum. “The datholch bears a noble dream.”