“Yes.” The wild boar eyes were sighted straight on him. “In your olden style. A roving commission, and you report directly to me. Plenipotentiary authority.”
Flandry’s pulse broke into a canter. He kept his tone level. “Quite a solo, sir.”
“Co-opt. Hire. Bribe. Threaten. Whatever you see fit.”
“The odds will stay long against my finding out anything useful—at least, anything the Corps can’t, quicker and better.”
“You are not good at modesty,” Hans said. “Are you unwilling?”
“N-n-no, sir.” Surprised, Flandry realized he spoke truth. This could prove interesting. In fact, he knew damn well it would, for he had already involved himself in the affair. His motivation was half curiosity, half kindliness—he thought at the time—though probably, down underneath, the carnivore which had been asleep in him these past three years had roused, pricked up its ears, snuffed game scent on a night breeze. Was that always my real desire? Not to chase down enemies of the Empire so I could go on having fun in it, but to have fun chasing them down?
No matter. The blood surged. “I’m happy to accept, sir, provided you don’t expect much. Uh, my authority, access to funds and secret data and whatnot … better be kept secret itself.”
“Right.” Hans knocked the dottle from his pipe, a ringing noise through a moment’s silence. “Is this why you refused admiral’s rank? You knew sneaking off someday on a mission would be easier for a mere captain.”
Flandry shrugged. “If you’ll tip the word to—better be none less than Kheraskov—I’ll contact him as soon as may be and made arrangements.”
“Have you any idea how you will begin?” Hans asked, relaxing a trifle.
“Well, I don’t know. Perhaps with that alleged Dennitzan agent. What became of … her, did you say?”
“How can I tell? I saw a precis of many reports, remember. What difference, after the ’probe wrung her dry?”
“Sometimes individuals count, sir.” Excitement in Flandry congealed to grimness. I should think the fact she’s a niece of the Gospodar—a fact available in the material on her that my son could freely scan from a data bank—would be worth mentioning to the Emperor. I should think such a hostage would not be sold for a slave, forced into whoredom except for the chance that I learned about her when she was offered for sale.
Better not tell Hans. He’d only be distracted from the million things he’s got to do. And anyhow … something strange here. I prefer to keep my mouth shut and my options open.
“Proceed as you wish,” the other said. “I know you won’t likely get far. But I can trust you will run a strong race.”
His glance went to the picture of the young man. His face sagged. Flandry could well-nigh read his mind: Ach, Otto! If you had not been killed—if I could bring you back, yes, even though I must trade for you dull Dietrich and scheming Gerhart both—we would have an heir to trust.
The Emperor straightened in his seat. “Very well,” he rapped. “Dismissed.”
The festival wore on. Toward morning, Flandry and Chunderban Desai found themselves alone.
The officer would have left sooner, were it not for his acquired job. Now he seemed wisest if he savored sumptuousness, admired the centuried treasures of static and fluid art which the palace housed, drank noble wines, nibbled on delicate foods, conversed with witty men, danced with delicious girls, finally brought one of these to a pergola he knew (unlocked, screened by jasmine vines) and made love. He might never get the chance again. After she bade him a sleepy goodbye, he felt like having a nightcap. The crowd had grown thin. He recognized Desai, fell into talk, ended in a small garden.
Its base was cantilevered from a wall, twenty meters above a courtyard where a fountain sprang. The waters, full of dissolved fluorescents, shone under ultraviolet illumination in colors more deep and pure than flame. Their tuned splashing resounded from catchbowls to make an eldritch music. Otherwise the two men on their bench had darkness and quiet. Flowers sweetened an air gone slightly cool. The moon was long down; Venus and a dwindling number of stars gleamed in a sky fading from black to purple, above an ocean coming all aglow.
“No, I am not convinced the Emperor does right to depart,” Desai said. The pudgy little old man’s hair glimmered white as his tunic; chocolate-hued face and hands were nearly invisible among shadows. He puffed on a cigarette in a long ivory holder. “Contrariwise, the move invites catastrophe.”
“But to let the barbarians whoop around at will—” Flandry sipped his cognac and drew on his cigar, fragrances first rich, then pungent. He’d wanted to end on a relaxing topic. Desai, who had served the Imperium in many executive capacities on many different planets, owned a hoard of reminiscences which made him worth cultivating. He was on Terra for a year, teaching at the Diplomatic Academy, before he retired to Ramanujan, his birthworld.
The military situation—specifically, Hans’ decision to go—evidently bothered him too much for pleasantries. “Oh, yes, that entire frontier needs restructuring,” he said. “Not simple reinforcement. New administrations, new laws, new economics: ideally, the foundations of an entire new society among the human inhabitants. However, his Majesty should leave that task to a competent viceroy and staff whom he grants extraordinary powers.”
“There’s the problem,” Flandry pointed out. “Who’s both competent and trustworthy enough, aside from those who’re already up to their armpits in alligators elsewhere?”
“If he has no better choice,” Desai said, “his Majesty should let the Spican sector be ravaged—should even let it be lost, in hopes of regaining the territory afterward—anything, rather than absent himself for months. What ultimate good can he accomplish yonder if meanwhile the Imperium is taken from him? The best service he can render the Empire is simply to keep a grip on its heart. Else the civil wars begin again.”
“I fear you exaggerate,” Flandry said, though he recalled how Desai was always inclined to understate things. And Dennitzans on Diomedes … “We seem to’ve pacified ourselves fairly well. Besides, why refer to civil wars in the plural?”
“Have you forgotten McCormac’s rebellion, Sir Dominic?”
Scarcely, seeing I was involved. Flandry winced at a memory. Lost Kathryn, as well as the irregular nature of his actions at the time, made him glad the details were still unpublic. “No. But that was, uh, twenty-two years ago. And amounted to what? An admiral who revolted against Josip’s sector governor for personal reasons. True, this meant he had to try for the crown. The Imperium could never have pardoned him. But he was beaten, and Josip died in bed.” Probably poisoned, to be sure.
“You consider the affair an isolated incident?” Desai challenged in his temperate fashion. “Allow me to remind you, please—I know you know—shortly afterward I found myself the occupation commissioner of McCormac’s home globe, Aeneas, which had spearheaded the uprising. We came within an angstrom there of getting a messianic religion that might have burst into space and torn the Empire in half.”
Flandry took a hard swallow from his snifter and a hard pull on his cigar. Well had he studied the records of that business, after he encountered Aycharaych who had engineered it.
“The thirteen following years—seeming peace inside the Empire, till Josip’s death—they are no large piece of history, are they?” Desai pursued. “Especially if we bear in mind that conflicts have causes. A war, including a civil war, is the flower on a plant whose seed went into the ground long before … and whose roots reach widely, and will send up fresh growths, … No, Sir Dominic, as a person who has read and reflected for most of a lifetime on this subject, I tell you we are well into our anarchic phase. The best we can do is minimize the damage, and hold outside enemies off until we win back to a scarred kind of unity.”