Poul Anderson: The Rebel Worlds

Flandry opened the door. “I brought you a visitor, Kathryn,” he said.

She uttered a noise that would long run through his nightmares. His Merseian war knife flew into her hand.

He wrenched the bag from Snelund and pinioned the man in a grip that was not to be shaken. Kicking the door shut behind him, he said, “Any way you choose, Kathryn. Any way at all.”

Snelund began screaming.

Seated at the pilot board of the gig, Flandry pushed controls to slide aside the housing and activate the view-screens. Space leaped at him. The gloom of Satan and the glitter of stars drifted slowly past as Rommel swung around the planet and tumbled along her invariable plane. Twice he identified slivers of blackness crossing the constellations and the Milky Way: nearby warcraft. But unaided senses could not really prove to him that he was at the heart of the rebel fleet.

Instruments had done that as he drove inward, and several curt conversations once he came in range. Even when Kathryn spoke directly with Hugh McCormac, reserve stood between them. Warned by his communications officer what to expect, the admiral had had time to don a mask. How could he know it wasn’t a trick? If he spoke to his wife at all, and not to an electronic shadow show, she might be under brainscrub, speaking the words that her operator projected into her middle ear. Her own mostly impersonal sentences, uttered from a visage nearly blank, yet the whole of her unsteady, might lend credence to that fear. Flandry had been astonished. He had taken for granted she would cry forth in joy.

Was it perhaps a simple but strong wish for privacy, or was it that at this ultimate moment and ultimate stress she must fight too hard to keep from flying apart? There had been no chance to ask her. She obeyed Flandry’s directive, revealing no secret of his, insisting that the two men hold a closed-door parley before anything else was done; and McCormac agreed, his voice rough and not altogether firm; and then things went too fast — the giving of directions, the study of meters, the maneuvers of approach and orbit matching — for Flandry to learn what she felt.

But while he prepared to go, she came from the cabin to which she had retreated. She seized his hands and looked into his eyes and whispered, “Dominic, I’m prayin’ for both of you.” Her lips brushed across his. They were cold, like her fingers, and tasted of salt. Before he could respond, she walked quickly away again.

Theirs had been a curious intimacy while they traveled hither. The red gift he had given her; the plan he laid out, and that she helped him perfect after she saw he was not to be moved from it; between times, dreamy talk of old days and far places, much reminiscence about little events on Dido — Flandry wondered if man and woman could grow closer in a wedded lifetime. In one aspect, yes, obviously they could; but that one they both shied off from speaking of.

And here came Persei into view and with her, one way or another, an end to everything which had been. The flagship loomed like a moon, mottled with thermostatic paint patterns, hilled with boat nacelles and gun turrets, thrusting out cannon and sensors like crystal forests. Satellite craft glinted around her. Indicator lights glowed on Flandry’s board and his receiver said, “We have a lock on you. Go ahead.”

He started the gravs. The gig left Rommel and surrendered to control from Persei. It was a short trip, but tense on both sides of the gap. How could McCormac be positive this was not a way to get a nuclear weapon inside his command vessel and detonate it? He can’t, Flandry thought. Especially when I wouldn’t allow anyone to come fetch me. Of course that might well have been for fear of being captured by a boarding party, which indeed was partly the case, but just the same — He’s courageous, McCormac. I detest him to his inmost cell, but he’s courageous.

A portal gaped and swallowed him. He sat for a minute hearing air gush back into the housing. Its personnel valves opened. He left the gig and went to meet the half dozen men who waited. They watched him somberly, neither hailing nor saluting.

He returned the stares. The insurrectionists were as marked by hunger and strain as he, but theirs was a less healthy, a sallowing, faintly grubby condition. “Relax,” he said. “Inspect my vessel if you wish. No boobytraps, I assure you. Let’s not dawdle, though.”

“This way … please.” The lieutenant who led the squad started off with rapid, stiff strides. Part of the group stayed behind, to check the boat. Those who walked at Flandry’s back were armed. It didn’t bother him. He had worse dangers to overcome before he could sleep.

They went through metal tunnels and caverns, past hundreds of eyes, in silence hardly broken save for the ship’s pulse and breath. At the end, four marines guarded a door. The lieutenant addressed them and passed through. Saluting in the entrance, he said, “Commander Flandry, sir.”

“Send him in,” replied a deep toneless voice. “Leave us alone but stay on call.”

“Aye, sir.” The lieutenant stood aside. Flandry went by. The door closed with a soft hiss that betokened soundproofing.

Quiet lay heavy in the admiral’s suite. This main room was puritanically furnished: chairs, a table, a couch, a plain rug, the bulkheads and overhead an undraped light gray. A few pictures and animations gave it some personality: family portraits, views from home, scenes of wilderness. So did a chess set and a bookshelf which held both codices and spools, both classics and scientific works. One of the inner doors was ajar, showing an office where McCormac must often toil after his watches. No doubt the bedroom was downright monastic, Flandry thought, the galley and bar seldom used, the—

“Greeting.” McCormac said. He stood large, straight, gaunt as his men but immaculate, the nebula and stars frosty on his shoulders. He had aged, Flandry saw: more gray in the dark hair than pictures recorded, still less flesh in the bony countenance and more wrinkles, the eyes sunken while the nose and chin had become promontories.

“Good day.” Flandry felt a moment’s awe and inadequacy wash over him. He dismissed it with a measure of cold enjoyment.

“You might have saluted, Commander,” McCormac said quietly.

“Against regulations,” Flandry replied. “You’ve forfeited your commission.”

“Have I? Well—” McCormac gestured. “Shall we sit down? Would you care for refreshment?”

“No, thanks,” Flandry said. “We haven’t time to go through the diplomatic niceties. Pickens’ fleet will be on you in less than 70 hours.”

McCormac lowered himself. “I am aware of that, Commander. We keep our scouts busy, you know. The mustering of that much strength could not be concealed. We’re prepared for a showdown; we welcome it.” He glanced up at the younger man and added: “You observe that I give you your proper rank. I am the Emperor of all Terran subjects. After the war, I plan on amnesty for nearly everyone who misguidedly opposed me. Even you, perhaps.”

Flandry sat down too, opposite him, crossed ankle over knee, and grinned. “Confident, aren’t you?”

“It’s a measure of your side’s desperation that it sent you in advance to try negotiating, with what you claim is my wife for a hostage.” McCormac’s mouth tightened. Momentarily, the wrath in him struck forth, though he spoke no louder. “I despise any man who’d lend himself to such a thing. Did you imagine I’d abandon everyone else who’s trusted me to save any individual, however dear? Go tell Snelund and his criminals, there will be no peace or pardon for them, though they run to the ends of the universe; but there are ways and ways to die, and if they harm my Kathryn further, men will remember their fate for a million years.”