Poul Anderson: The Game of Empire

“Did not the authorities object?” Axor wondered.

“They couldn’t find me at first. Later they forgot.”

Axor uttered a splintering noise that might f be his equivalent of a laugh. “Very well, little sprite of all the world, let us see how you guide a poor bumbler. Make the arrangements, and leave me to my data and breviary until we are ready for departure. But can you give me an idea of what to expect?”

“I’ll try, but I don’t make any promises,” Diana said. “Especially these days. You didn’t arrive at the best time, sir.”

Scales stirred above the brow ridges. “What do you mean, pray?”

Grimness laid grip on her. She had ignored the news as much as possible. What could she do about it? Well, she had mentally listed various refuges, according to where she would be when the trouble exploded, if it was going to. But here she was committing herself to an expedition which could take her anyplace, and—“That ruckus with the Merseians last year was just a thing off in space,” she said. “Since, I’ve kept hearin’ rumors—ask your God to make them only rumors, will you?—Sir, we may be on the edge of a real war.”

On Daedalus, the world without a horizon, a Tigery was still an uncommon sight, apt to draw everybody’s attention. Targovi had made an exception of himself. The capital Aurea, its hinterland, communities the length of the Highroad River as far as the Phosphoric Ocean, no few of the settlements scattered elsewhere, had grown used to him. He would put his battered Moonjumper down at the spaceport, exchange japes with guards and officials, try to sell them something, then load his wares into an equally disreputable-looking van and be off. His stock in trade was Imhotepan, a jackdaw museum of the infinite diversity that is every planet’s. Artifacts of his people he had, cutlery, tapestries, perfumes; things strange and delicate, made underwater by the Seafolk; exotic products of nature, skins, mineral gems, land pearls, flavorful wild foods—for the irony was that huge Imhotep had begotten life which Terrans, like Starkadians, could safely take nourishment from, whereas Terra-sized Daedalus had not.

For a number of years he had thus ranged, dickering, swapping, amusing himself and most whom he encountered, a generally amiable being whom—certain individuals discovered too late—it was exceedingly dangerous to affront. Even when tensions between Merseia and Terra snapped asunder, sporadic combats erupted throughout the marches, and at last Sector Admiral Magnusson took his forces to meet an oncoming armada of the Riodhunate, even then had Targovi plied his trade unhindered.

Thus he registered shock when he landed in routine fashion a twelvemonth later, and the junior port officer who gave him his admission certificate warned: “You had better stay in touch with us. Interplanetary traffic may be suddenly curtailed. You could find yourself unable to get off Daedalus for an. indefinite time.”

“Eyada shkor!” ripped from Targovi. His tendrils grew stiff. A hand dropped to the knife at his side. “What is this?”

“Possible emergency,” said the human. “Understand, I am trying to be friendly. There ought to be a short grace period. If you then return here immediately, I can probably get you clearance to go home. Otherwise you could be stranded and unable to earn your keep, once your goods were sold and the proceeds spent.”

“I … think … I would survive,” Targovi murmured.

The officer peered across his desk. “You may be right,” he said. “But we may not like the ways you would find. I would be sorry to see you jailed, or gunned down.”

The Tigery looked predatory enough to arouse qualms. His resemblance to a man was merely in the roughest outlines. He stood as tall as an average one, but on disproportionately long and powerful legs whose feet were broad and clawed. Behind, a stubby tail twitched. The torso was thick, the arms and their four-fingered hands cabled with muscle. The round head bore a countenance flat and narrow-chinned, a single breathing slit in the nose, carnivore teeth agleam in the wide mouth. Beneath the fronded chemosensor tendrils, eyes were slanted and scarlet-hued. The large, movable ears were scalloped around the edges as if to suggest bat wings. Fur clothed him in silkiness that had now begun to bristle, black-striped orange except for a white triangle at the throat. His voice purred, hissed, sometimes growled or screeched, making its fluent Anglic an outlandish dialect.

He wore nothing at present but a breech-clout, pocketed belt, knife, and amulet hung from his neck—these, and an oxygill. Its pleated pearly ruff lifted from his shoulders at the back of the head, framing the latter. Strange it might seem, to observe such a molecularly-convoluted intricacy upon such a creature, and to recollect what chemical subtleties went on within, oxygen captured and led into the bloodstream through capillary-fine tubes surgically installed. Yet it gave him the freedom to be barbaric, where he would else have been encumbered with a helmet and pump, or have perished. His kind had evolved under an air pressure more than nine times the Terran.

“I think your efforts might fail,” he said low. Easing: “However, surely naught untoward will happen. You are kind to advise me, Dosabhai Patel. You wife may find some pleasant trinket in her mail. But what is this extremity you await?”

“I did not say we are bound to have one,” replied the officer quickly.

“What could it be, does it come on us?”

“Too many wild rumors are flying about. Both naval and civil personnel are under orders not to add to them.”

Targovi’s chair had been designed for a human, but he was sufficiently supple to flow down into it. His eyelids drooped; he bridged his fingertips. “Ah, good friend, you realize I am bound to hear those rumors. Were it not best to arm me with truths whereby I may slay them? I am, of course, a simple, wandering trader, who knows no secrets. Yet I should have had some inkling if, say, a new Merseian attack seemed likely.”

“Not that! Admiral Magnusson gave them a lesson they will remember for a while.” Patel cleared his throat. “Understand, what happened was not a war.”

Targovi did not overtly resent the patronizing lecture that followed, meant for a half-civilized xeno: “Bloody incidents are all too common. It is inevitable, when two great powers, bitter rivals, share an ill-defined and thinly peopled buffer zone which is, actually, an arena for them. This latest set of clashes began when negotiations over certain spheres of influence broke down and commanders in various locations grew, ah, trigger-happy. True, the Roidhunate did dispatch a task force to ‘restore order.’ Had it succeeded, the Merseians would undoubtedly have occupied the Patrician System, thereby making this entire sector almost indefensible and having a salient deep into the Empire. We would have had to settle with them on highly disadvantageous terms. As you know, Admiral Magnusson beat them back, and diplomats on both sides are trying to mend things … No, we are in no immediate danger from outside.”

“From inside, then?” Targovi drawled. “Even we poor, uprooted vaz-Toborko—aye, even the vaz-Siravo beneath their seas—have learned a little about your great Empire. Rebellions and attempted rebellions have grown, regrettably, not infrequent, during the past half century. The present dynasty itself, did it not come to power by—?—”

“The glorious revolution was necessary,” Patel declared. “Emperor Hans restored order and purged corruption.”

“Ah, but his sons—”

Patel’s fist struck the desktop. “Very well, you insolent barbarian! Daedalus, this whole system, the Empire itself were in grave peril last year. Admiral Magnusson rectified the situation, but it should never have arisen. The Imperial forces in these parts should have been far stronger. As matters stood, under a less brilliant commander, they would almost certainly have been smashed.” He moistened his lips. “No question of disloyalty. No lèse majesté. But there is a widespread feeling on Daedalus, especially among Navy personnel, that Emperor Gerhart and his Policy Board have … not been well advised … that some of the counsel they heeded may actually have been treasonable in intent … that drastic reform has again become overdue. The Admiral has sent carefully reasoned recommendations to Terra. Meanwhile, dissatisfaction leads to restlessness. He may have to impose martial law, or—Enough. These matters are not for subjects like you and me to decide.” Nonetheless eagerness lighted his features and shrilled in his voice. “You have had your warning, Targovi. Be off, but stay in touch; attend to your business and nothing else; and you will probably be all right.”