Poul Anderson: The Game of Empire

“The admiral knows what he’s doing,” asserted a man stoutly.

“Y-yes. And what he’s not doing. Those could be ships of his—No more! Say on, Targovi.”

Targovi did. He told tales of his tarings to the vaz-Siravo in their seas. On Starkad, his race and theirs had often been mortal enemies. Feelings lingered, not to mention abysses of difference. They tried to get along together these days, because they must, and usually they succeeded, more or less, but it could be difficult. This led to chat about the care and feeding of Merseians …

Prisoners were not maltreated, if only because the opposition could retaliate. In particular, officers were housed as well as feasible. Fodaich Eidhafor the Bold, Vach Dathyr, highest among those plucked from ruined ships of the Roidhunate, got an entire house and staff of servants to himself, lent by a prosperous businessman who anticipated governmental favor for his civic-mindedness. It was guarded by electronics and a couple of live sentries. Lesser captives were held almost as lightly. Where could they flee to, on a planet where they would starve in the wilds and every soul in every settlement would instantly know them for what they were? The house was in a fashionable residential district a hundred kilometers north of Aurea. It stood alone on a knoll amidst flowerbeds, hedges, and bowers.

True night never fell on Daedalus. The city was distance-dwindled to a miniature mosaic of lights, sparse because it had no need to illuminate streets. Sunlight was a red-gold ring, broadest and most nearly bright to the west, where Patricius had lately set, fading and thinning toward the east, but at this hour complete. Otherwise the sky was a gray-blue in which nearly every star was lost.

Eidhafor awoke when a hand gently shook him by the shoulder. He sat up in bed. Windows filled the room with dusk. Beside him stood a form shadowy but not human, not Merseian—“Hssh!” it hissed. “Stay quiet.” Fingers increased their pressure, not painfully, but enough to suggest what strength lay behind them. “I mean you no harm. Rather, I wish you well. If you do not cry out, then we shall talk, only talk.”

“Who are you?” Eidhafor rasped, likewise in Anglic. “What are you? How did you get in?”

The stranger chuckled. Teeth flashed briefly white below the ember gleam of eyes. “As to that last, fodaich, it was not difficult, the more so when unawaited. A car that landed well away from here, a hunter who used his tricks of stalking to get close, a pair of small devices—surely the fodaich can imagine.”

Eidhafor regained equilibrium. If murder had been intended, it would have happened while he slept. “Under my oath to the Roidhun and my honor within my Vach, I cannot talk freely to an unknown,” he said.

“Understood,” the stranger purred. “I will ask no secrets of you: nothing but frankness, such as I suspect you have already indulged in, and doubtless will again when you return home. It could well prove in the interest of your cause.”

“And what is your own interest?” Eidhafor flung.

“Softly, I beg you, softly. You will presently agree how unwise it would be to rouse the household.” The stranger let go his grip and curled down to sit on the end of the bed. “No matter my name. We shall concern ourselves with you for a while. Afterward I will depart by the way I came, and you may go back to sleep.”

Eidhafor squinted through the gloom. He had felt fur. And those ears and tendrils—He had seen pictures in his briefings before the fleet took off. “You are a Starkadian from Imhotep,” he declared flatly.

“Mayhap.” The eyes held steady. Could they see better in the dark than human or Merseian eyes?

If so, they beheld a being roughly the size and shape of a big man. Standing, Eidhafor would lean forward on tyrannosaurian legs, counterbalanced by a heavy tail; but his hands and his visage were humanoid, if you ignored countless details. External ears were lacking. The skin was hairless, pale green, meshed by fine scales. He was warm-blooded, male, wedded to a female who had borne their young alive. His species and the human had biochemistries so closely similar that they desired the same kinds of worlds; and it might well be that the mindsets were not so different, either.

“What could a Starkadian want of a Merseian?” he asked.

“It is true, there is a grievance,” whispered back. “Had the Roidhunate had its way, all life on Starkad would long since be ashes. The Terrans rescued some of us. But that was a generation or more ago. Times change; gratitude is mortal; likewise is enmity, though apt to be longer-lived. If I am a Starkadian, then imagine that certain among us are reconsidering where our own best interests lie. Furthermore, Merseia almost took control of this system, thus of Imhotep. The next round may have another outcome. It would be well for us to gain understanding of you. If I am a Starkadian, then I have taken this opportunity to try for a little insight.”

“A-a-ahhh,” Eidhafor breathed.

Captain Jerrold Ronan was in charge of Naval Intelligence for the Patrician System. That was a more important and demanding job than it appeared to be or than his rank suggested. Subordinates had reason to believe that he stood high in the confidence of his superiors, including Admiral Magnusson.

Hence it would grossly have blown cover for Targovi, obscure itinerant chapman, to see him in person. Instead, the Tigery called from his van, away off in the outback. The message went through sealed circuits and an array of encoding programs.

At contact, by appointment: “Well?” snapped Ronan. “Be quick. Matters are close to the breaking point. I can’t spare time for every hint-collector who imagines he’s come across a sensational piece of revelation.” He sighed. “Why did I ever give you direct access to me?”

The least of ripples went across Targovi’s pelt, and underneath. His tone held smooth. “The noble captain is indeed overburdened, if he forgets the honor that his dignity requires he grant those who operate in his service. Let me remind him that he himself felt, years agone, an individual like this one could prove uniquely able to gather special kinds of clues.”

The man’s thin, freckled countenance drew into a scowl. “You and your damned pride! Close to insubordination—” He calmed. “All right. I’m harassed, and it probably has made me rude. You did pick up some useful leads in the past.”

They had been leads to nothing enormous; nevertheless, they had been useful. Like humans, Merseians employed various agents not of their own species. A racial and cultural patchwork such as Daedalus, remote from the Imperial center, was vulnerable to subversion—and not just from Merseia; the Empire seethed with criminality, dissension, unbounded ambitions. To hold the sector, the Navy must be the police force of their main-base planet. Colonists tended to feel less constrained in the presence of an affable nonhuman trader than with somebody more readily imaginable as working undercover.

“I think this time I have truly significant news,” Targovi said.

The screen image ran fingers through its red hair. “You’ve been on Daedalus a while?”

“Yes, sir. Going to and fro on my usual rounds, and some not so usual. Looking, listening, talking, snooping. Scarce need I tell the captain how much discontent is afoot, sense of betrayal, demands for amendment—especially in the Navy—although it may be that many persons spoke more freely before me than they would have before others. Sir, I cannot but feel that this sentiment is very largely being fomented. To a natural aggravation, which should but cause grumbling, come unfounded allegations, repeated until everyone takes their truth for given; inflammatory slogans; hostile japes—”