“Read.” Brummelmann thrust a printout at him. “You liar, you traitor, thought you could fool me? Look what came.”
It was a standard form, transcribed from a hypercast that must have originated in one of several automatic transmitters around Saxo. Office of Vice Admiral Juan Enriques, commanding Imperial Terrestrial Naval forces in region— Flandry’s glance flew to the text.
General directive issued under martial law: By statement of his Excellency Lord Markus Hauksberg, Viscount of Ny Kalmar on Terra, special Imperial delegate to the Roidhunate of Merseia … Ensign Dominic Flandry, an officer of his Majesty’s Navy attached to the delegation … mutinied and stole a spaceboat belonging to the realm of Ny Kalmar; description as follows … charged with high treason … Pursuant to interstellar law and Imperial policy, Ensign Flandry is to be apprehended and returned to his superiors on Merseia … All ships, including Terran, will be boarded by Merseian inspectors before proceeding to Starkad … Terrans who may apprehend this criminal are to deliver him promptly, in their own persons, to the nearest Merseian authority … secrets of state—
Persis closed her eyes and strained fingers together. The blood had left her face.
“Well?” Brummelmann growled. “Well, what have you to say for yourself?”
Flandry leaned against the bulkhead. He didn’t know if his legs would upbear him. “I … can say … that bastard Brechdan thinks of everything.”
“You expected you could fool me? You thought I would do your traitor’s work? No, no!”
Flandry looked from him, to the mate, to Persis. Weakness vanished in rage. But his brain stayed machine precise. He lowered the hand which held the flimsy. “I’d better tell you the whole truth,” he husked.
“No, I don’t want to hear, I want no secrets.”
Flandry let his knees go. As he fell, he yanked out his blaster. The torch flame boomed blue where he had been. His own snap shot flared off that tool. The mate yowled and dropped the red-hot thing. Flandry regained his feet. “Get rid of your wrench,” he said.
It clattered on the deck. Brummelmann backed off, past his mate who crouched and keened in pain. “You cannot get away,” he croaked. “We are detected by now. Surely we are. You make us turn around, a warship comes after.”
“I know,” Flandry said. His mind leaped as if across ice floes. “Listen. This is a misunderstanding. Lord Hauksberg’s been fooled. I do have information, and it does have to reach Admiral Enriques. I want nothing from you but transportation to Highport. I’ll surrender to the Terrans. Not to the Merseians. The Terrans. What’s wrong with that? They’ll do what the Emperor really wants. If need be, they can turn me over to the enemy. But not before they’ve heard what I have to tell. Are you a man, Captain? Then behave like one!”
“But we will be boarded,” Brummelmann wailed.
“You can hide me. A thousand possible places on a ship. If they have no reason to suspect you, the Merseians won’t search everywhere. That could take days. Your crew won’t blab. They’re as alien to the Merseians as they are to us. No common language, gestures, interests, anything. Let the greenskins come aboard. I’ll be down in the cargo or somewhere. You act natural. Doesn’t matter if you show a bit of strain. I’m certain everybody they’ve checked has done so. Pass me on to the Terrans. A year from now you could have a knighthood.”
Brummelmann’s eyes darted back and forth. The breath rasped sour from his mouth.
“The alternative,” Flandry said, “is that I lock you up and assume command.”
“I … no—” Tears started forth, down into the dirty beard. “Please. Too much risk—” Abruptly, slyly, after a breath: “Why, yes. I will. I can find a good hiding spot for you.”
And tell them when they arrive, Flandry thought. I’ve got the upper hand and it’s worthless. What am I to do?
Persis stirred. She approached Brummelmann and took his hands in hers. “Oh, thank you,” she caroled.
“Eh? Ho?” He gawped at her.
“I knew you were a real man. Like the old heroes of the League, come back to life.”
“But you—lady—”
“The message doesn’t include a word about me,” she purred. “I don’t feel like sitting in some dark hole.”
“You … you aren’t registered aboard. They will read the list. Won’t they?”
“What if they do? Would I be registered?”
Hope rushed across Flandry. He felt giddy with it. “There are some immediate rewards, you see,” he cackled.
“I—why, I—” Brummelmann straightened. He caught Persis to him. “So there are. Oh, ho, ho! So there are!”
She threw Flandry a look he wished he could forget.
He crept from the packing case. The hold was gut-black. The helmet light of his spacesuit cast a single beam to guide him. Slowly, awkward in armor, he wormed among crates to the hatch.
The ship was quiet. Nothing spoke but powerplant, throttled low, and ventilators. Shadows bobbed grotesque where his beam cut a path. Orbit around Starkad, awaiting clearance to descend—must be. He had survived. The Merseians had passed within meters of him, he heard them talk and curled finger around trigger; but they had gone again and the Rieskessel resumed acceleration. So Persis had kept Brummelmann under control; he didn’t like to think how.
The obvious course was to carry on as he had outlined, let himself be taken planetside and turn himself in. Thus he would be certain to get his message through, the word which he alone bore. (He had wondered whether to give Persis those numbers, but decided against it. A list for her made another chance of getting caught; and her untrained mind might not retain the figures exactly, even in the subconscious for narcosynthesis to bring forth.) But he didn’t know how Enriques would react. The admiral was no robot; he would pass the information on to Terra, one way or another. But he might yield up Flandry. He would most likely not send an armed scout to check and confirm, without authorization from headquarters. Not in the face of Hauksberg’s message, or the command laid on him that he must take no escalating action save in response to a Merseian initiative.
So at best, the obvious course entailed delay, which the enemy might put to good use. It entailed a high probability of Brechdan Ironrede learning how matters stood. Max Abrams (Are you alive yet, my father?) had said, “What helps the other fellow most is knowing what you know.” And, finally, Dominic Flandry wasn’t about to become a God damned pawn again!
He opened the hatch. The corridor stretched empty. Unhuman music squealed from the forecastle. Captain Brummelmann was in no hurry to make planetfall, and his crew was taking the chance to relax.
Flandry sought the nearest lifeboat. If anyone noticed, well, all right, he’d go to Highport. But otherwise, borrowing a boat would be the smallest crime on his docket. He entered the turret, dogged the inner valve, closed his faceplate, and worked the manual controls. Pumps roared, exhausting air. He climbed into the boat and secured her own airlock. The turret’s outer valve opened automatically.
Space blazed at him. He nudged through on the least possible impetus. Starkad was a huge wheel of darkness, rimmed with red, day blue on one edge. A crescent moon glimmered among the stars. Weightlessness caught Flandry in an endless falling.
It vanished as he turned on interior gravity and applied a thrust vector. He spiraled downward. The planetary map was clear in his recollection. He could reach Ujanka without trouble—Ujanka, the city he had saved.
16
Dragoika flowed to a couch, reclined on one elbow, and gestured at Flandry. “Don’t pace in that caged way, Domma-neek,” she urged. “Take ease by my side. We have scant time alone together, we two friends.”