Which I’d already begun to think I saw in this whole affair. Dreams and shadows and flitting ghosts—
“He’s about as tall as you are,” Susette was saying, “skinny—no, I mean fine-boned and lean—except for wide shoulders and a kind of jutting chest. Six fingers to a hand, extra-jointed, ambery nails; but four claws to a foot and a spur behind, like a sort of bird. And he did say his race conies from a, uh, an analogue of flightless birds. I can’t say a lot more about his body, because he always wore a long robe, though usually going barefoot. His face … well, I’d make him sound ugly if I spoke about a dome of a brow, big hook nose, thin lips, pointed ears, and of course all the, the shapes, angles, proportions different from ours. Actually, he’s beautiful. I could’ve spent days looking into those huge red-brown whiteless eyes of his, if he’d let me. His skin is deep gold color. He has no hair anywhere I saw, but a kind of shark-fin crest on the crown of his head, made from dark-blue feathers, and tiny feathers for eyebrows. His voice is low and … pure music.”
Flandry nodded. “M-hm. He stayed in your house?”
“Yes. We and the servants were strictly forbidden to mention him anywhere outside. When he visited the building his team had taken over—or maybe left town altogether; I can’t say—he’d put on boots, a cowl, a face mask, like he came from someplace where men cover up everything in public; and walking slow, he could make his gait pass for human.”
“Did you get any hints of what he did?”
“No. They called him a … consultant.” Susette sat upright. “Was he really a spy?”
“I can identify him,” Flandry said, “and the answer is no.” Why should he spy on his own companions—subordinates? And he didn’t bring them here to collect information, except incidentally. Fm pretty sure he came to kindle a war.
“Oh, I’m glad,” Susette exclaimed. “He was such a lovely guest. Even though I often couldn’t follow his conversation. Martin did better, but he’d get lost too when Aycharaych started talking about art and history—of Terra! He made me ashamed I was that ignorant about my own planet. No, not ashamed; really interested, wanting to go right out and learn if only I knew how. And then he’d talk on my level, like mentioning little things I’d never much noticed or appreciated, and getting me to care about them, till this dull place seemed full of wonder and—”
She subsided. “Have I told you enough?” she asked.
“I may have a few more questions later,” Flandry said, “but for now, yes, I’m through.”
She held out her arms. “Oh, no, you’re not, you man, you! You’ve just begun. C’mere.”
Flandry did. But while he embraced her, he was mostly harking back to the last time he met Aycharaych.
IX
{That was four years ago, in the planet-wide winter of eccentrically orbiting Talwin. Having landed simultaneously from the warships which brought them hither, Captain Sir Dominic Flandry and his opposite number, Qanryf Tachwyr the Dark, were received with painstaking correctness by the two commissioners of their respective races who administered the joint Merseian-Terran scientific base. After due ceremony, they expressed a wish to dine privately, that they might discuss the tasks ahead of them in frankness and at leisure.
The room for this was small, austerely outfitted as the entire outpost necessarily was. Talwin’s system coursed through the Wilderness, that little-explored buffer zone of stars between Empire and Roidhunate; it had no attraction for traders; the enterprise got a meager budget. A table, some chairs and stools, a sideboard, a phone were the whole furniture, unless you counted the dumbwaiter with sensors and extensible arms for serving people who might not wish a live attendant while they talked.
Flandry entered cheerily, 0.88 gee lending bounce to his gait. The Merseian officer waited, half dinosaurian despite a close-fitting silver-trimmed black uniform, bold against snowfields, frozen river, and shrunken sun in crystalline sky which filled a wall transparency behind him.
“Well, you old rascal, how are you?” The man held forth his hand in Terran wise. Tachwyr clasped it between warm dry fingers and leathery palm. They had no further amicable gesture to exchange, since Flandry lacked a tail.
“Thirsty,” Tachwyr rumbled. They sought the well-stocked sideboard. Tachwyr reached for Scotch and Flandry for telloch. They caught each other’s glances and laughed, Merseian drumroll and human staccato. “Been a long while for us both, arrach?”
Flandry noted the inference, that of recent years Tachwyr’s work had brought him into little or no contact with Terrans, for whatever it might be worth. Likely that wasn’t much. The Empire’s mulish attitude toward the aggrandizement of the Roidhunate was by no means the sole problem which the latter faced. Still, Tachwyr was by way of being an expert on Homo sapiens; so if a more urgent matter had called him—To be sure, he might have planned his remark precisely to make his opponent think along these lines.
“I trust your wives and children enjoy good fortune,” Flandry said in polite Eriau.
“Yes, I thank the God.” The formula being completed, Tachwyr went on: “Chydhwan’s married, and Gelch has begun his cadetship. I presume you’re still a bachelor?” He must ask that in Anglic, for his native equivalent would have been an insult. His jet eyes probed. “Aren’t you the gaudy one, though? What style is that?”
The man extended an arm to show off colors and embroideries of his mufti. The plumes bobbed which sprang from an emerald brooch holding his turban together. “Latest fashion in Dehiwala—on Ramanujan, you know. I was there a while back. Garb at home has gotten positively drab.” He lifted his glass. “Well, tor ychwei.”
“Here’s to you,” the Merseian responded in Anglic. They drank. The telloch was thick and bitter-fiery.
Flandry looked outdoors. “Brrr!” he said. “I’m glad this time I won’t need to tramp through that.”
“Khraich? I’d hoped we might go on a hunt.”
“Don’t let me stop you. But if nothing else, my time here is limited. I must get back. Wouldn’t have come at all except for your special invitation.”
Tachwyr studied Flandry. “I never doubted you are busy these days,” he said.
“Yes, jumping around like a probability function in a high wind.”
“You do not seem discouraged.”
“N-no.” Flandry sipped, abruptly brought his gaze around, and stated: “We’re near the end of our troubles. What opposition is left has no real chance.”
“And Hans Molitor will be undisputed Emperor.” Tachwyr’s relaxation evaporated. Flandry, who knew him from encounters both adversary and half friendly since they were fledglings in their services, had rather expected that. A big, faintly scaled hand clenched on the tumbler of whisky. “My reason why I wanted this meeting.”
“Your reason?” Flandry arched his brows, though he knew Tachwyr felt it was a particularly grotesque expression.
“Yes. I persuaded my superiors to send your government—Molitor’s—the proposal, and put me in charge of our side. However, if you had not come yourself, I imagine the conference would have proved as empty as my datholch claimed it would, when I broached the idea to him.”
I can’t blame the good datholch, Flandry thought. It does seem ludicrous on the face of it: discussions between Intelligence officers of rank below admiral or fodaich, who can’t make important commitments—discussions about how to “resolve mutual difficulties” and assure the Imperium that the Roidhunate has never had any desire to interfere in domestic affairs of the Empire—when everybody knows how gleefully Merseian agents have swarmed through every one of our camps, trying their eternally damnedest to keep our family fight going.