“I still don’t see how you rate,” Jan van Zuyl complained from the bunk where he sprawled. “A lousy ensign like you.”
“You’re an ensign yourself, me boy,” Flandry reminded him from the dresser. He gave his blue tunic a final tug, pulled on his white gloves, and buffed the jetflare insignia on his shoulders.
“Yes, but not a lousy one,” said his roommate.
“I’m a hero. Remember?”
“I’m a hero too. We’re all heroes.” Van Zuyl’s gaze prowled their dismal little chamber. The girlie animations hardly brightened it. “Give L’Etoile a kiss for me.”
“You mean she’ll be there?” Flandry’s pulses jumped.
“She was when Carruthers got invited. Her and Sharine and—”
“Carruthers is a lieutenant j.g. Therefore he is ex officio a liar. Madame Cepheid’s choicest items are not available to anyone below commander.”
“He swears milord had ’em on hand, and in hand, for the occasion. So he lies. Do me a favor and elaborate the fantasy on your return. I’d like to keep that particular illusion.”
“You provide the whisky and I’ll provide the tales.” Flandry adjusted his cap to micrometrically calculated rakishness.
“Mercenary wretch,” van Zuyl groaned. “Anyone else would lie for pleasure and prestige.”
“Know, O miserable one, that I possess an inward serenity which elevates me far beyond any need for your esteem. Yet not beyond need for your booze. Especially after the last poker game. And a magnificent evening to you. I shall return.”
Flandry proceeded down the hall and out the main door of the junior officers’ dorm. Wind struck viciously at him. Sea-level air didn’t move fast, being too dense, but on this mountaintop Saxo could energize storms of more than terrestroid ferocity. Dry snow hissed through chill and clamor. Flandry wrapped his cloak about him with a sigh for lost appearances, hung onto his cap, and ran. At his age he had soon adapted to the gravity.
HQ was the largest building in Highport, which didn’t say much, in order to include a level of guest suites. Flandry had remarked on that to Commander Abrams, in one of their conversations following the numerous times he’d been summoned for further questioning about his experience with the Tigeries. The Intelligence chief had a knack for putting people at their ease. “Yes, sir, quite a few of my messmates have wondered if—uh—”
“If the Imperium has sludge on the brain, taking up shipping space with luxuries for pestiferous junketeers that might’ve been used to send us more equipment. Hey?” Abrams prompted.
“Uh … nobody’s committing lèse majesté, sir.”
“The hell they aren’t. But I guess you can’t tell me so right out. In this case, though, you boys are mistaken.” Abrams jabbed his cigar at Flandry. “Think, son. We’re here for a political purpose. So we need political support. We won’t get it by antagonizing courtiers who take champagne and lullaby beds for granted. Tell your friends that silly-looking hotel is an investment.”
Here’s where I find out.
A scanner checked Flandry and opened the door. The lobby beyond was warm! It was also full of armed guards. They saluted and let him by with envious glances. But as he went up the gravshaft, his self-confidence grew thinner. Rather than making him bouncy, the graduated shift to Terran weight gave a sense of unfirmness.
“Offhand,” Abrams had said when he learned about the invitation, “milord seems to want you for a novelty. You’ve a good yarn and you’re a talented spinner. Nu, entertain him. But watch yourself. Hauksberg’s no fool. Nor any idler. In fact, I gather that every one of his little soirées has served some business purpose—off-the-record information, impressions of what we really expect will happen and expect to do and how we really feel about the whole schtick.”
By that time, Flandry knew him well enough to venture a grin. “How do we really feel, sir? I’d like to know.”
“What’s your opinion? Your own, down inside? I haven’t got any recorder turned on.”
Flandry frowned and sought words. “Sir, I only work here, as they say. But … indoctrination said our unselfish purpose is to save the land civilizations from ruin; islanders depend on the sea almost as much as the fishfolk. And our Imperial purpose is to contain Merseian expansionism whereever it occurs. But I can’t help wondering why anybody wants this planet.”
“Confidentially,” Abrams said, “my main task is to find the answer to that. I haven’t succeeded yet.”
—A liveried servant announced Flandry. He stepped into a suite of iridescent walls, comfortable loungers, an animation showing a low-gee production of Ondine. Behind a buffet table poised another couple of servants, and three more circulated. A dozen men stood conversing: officers of the mission in dress uniform, Hauksberg’s staff in colorful mufti. Only one girl was present. Flandry was a little too nervous for disappointment. It was a relief to see Abrams’ square figure.
“Ah. Our gallant ensign, eh?” A yellow-haired man set down his glass—a waiter with a tray was there before he had completed the motion—and sauntered forth. His garments were conservatively purple and gray, but they fitted like another skin and showed him to be in better physical shape than most nobles. “Welcome. Hauksberg.”
Flandry saluted. “My lord.”
“At ease, at ease.” Hauksberg made a negligent gesture. “No rank or ceremony tonight. Hate ’em, really.” He took Flandry’s elbow. “C’mon and be introduced.”
The boy’s superiors greeted him with more interest than hitherto. They were men whom Starkad had darkened and leaned; honors sat burnished on their tunics; they could be seen to resent how patronizingly the Terran staffers addressed one of their own. “—and my concubine, the right honorable Persis d’Io.”
“I am privileged to meet you, Ensign,” she said as if she meant it.
Flandry decided she was an adequate substitute for L’Etoile, at least in ornamental function. She was equipped almost as sumptuously as Dragoika, and her shimmerlyn gown emphasized the fact. Otherwise she wore a fire ruby at her throat and a tiara on high-piled crow’s-wing tresses. Her features were either her own or shaped by an imaginative biosculptor: big green eyes, delicately arched nose, generous mouth, uncommon vivacity. “Please get yourself a drink and a smoke,” she said. “You’ll need a soothed larynx. I intend to make you talk a lot.”
“Uh … um—” Flandry barely stopped his toes from digging in the carpet. The hand he closed on a proffered wine glass was damp. “Little to talk about, Donna. Lots of men have, uh, had more exciting things happen to them.”
“Hardly so romantic, though,” Hauksberg said. “Sailin” with a pirate crew, et cet’ra.”
“They’re not pirates, my lord,” Flandry blurted. “Merchants … Pardon me.”
Hauksberg studied him. “You like ’em, eh?”
“Yes, sir,” Flandry said. “Very much.” He weighed his words, but they were honest. “Before I got to know the Tigeries well, my mission here was only a duty. Now I want to help them.”
“Commendable. Still, the sea dwellers are also sentient bein’s, what? And the Merseians, for that matter. Pity everyone’s at loggerheads.”
Flandry’s ears burned. Abrams spoke what he dared not: “My lord, those fellow beings of the ensign’s did their level best to kill him.”
“And in retaliation, after he reported, an attack was made on a squadron of theirs,” Hauksberg said sharply. “Three Merseians were killed, plus a human. I was bein’ received by Commandant Runei at the time. Embarrassin’.”