Behind the helmet, a smile ghosted at one corner of Enriques’ mouth. “I suspect she is merely prepared to trust me to a clearly defined extent.”
“Won’t the Admiral be seated?”
Enriques glanced at Dragoika. She eased to her couch. He took the other one, sitting straight. Flandry remained on his feet. Sweat prickled him.
“Sir,” he blurted, “please, is Donna d’Io all right?”
“Yes, except for being in a bad nervous state. She landed soon after your message arrived. The Rieskessel’s captain had been making one excuse after another to stay in orbit. When we learned from you that Donna d’Io was aboard, we said we would loft a gig for her. He came down at once. What went on there?”
“Well, sir—I mean, I can’t say. I wasn’t around, sir. She told you about our escape from Merseia?”
“We had a private interview at her request. Her account was sketchy. But it does tend to bear out your claims.”
“Sir, I know what the Merseians are planning, and it’s monstrous. I can prove—”
“You will need considerable proof, Ensign,” Enriques said bleakly. “Lord Hauksberg’s communication laid capital charges against you.”
Flandry felt nervousness slide from him. He doubled his fists and cried, with tears of rage stinging his eyes: “Sir, I’m entitled to a court-martial. By my own people. And you’d have let the Merseians have me!”
The lean visage beneath his hardly stirred. The voice was flat. “Regulations provide that personnel under charges are to be handed over to their assigned superiors if this is demanded. The Empire is too big for any other rule to work. By virtue of being a nobleman, Lord Hauksberg holds a reserve commission, equivalent rank of captain, which was automatically activated when Commander Abrams was posted to him. Until you are detached from your assignment, he is your senior commanding officer. He declared in proper form that state secrets and his mission on behalf of the Imperium have been endangered by you. The Merseians will return you to him for examination. It is true that courts-martial must be held on an Imperial ship or planet, but the time for this may be set by him within a one-year limit.”
“Will be never! Sir, they’ll scrub my brain and kill me!”
“Restrain yourself, Ensign.”
Flandry gulped. Dragoika bared teeth but stayed put. “May I hear the exact charges against me, sir?” Flandry asked.
“High treason,” Enriques told him. “Mutiny. Desertion. Kidnapping. Threat and menace. Assault and battery. Theft. Insubordination. Shall I recite the entire bill? I thought not. You have subsequently added several items. Knowing that you were wanted, you did not surrender yourself. You created dissension between the Empire and an associated country. This, among other things, imperils his Majesty’s forces on Starkad. At the moment, you are resisting arrest. Ensign, you have a great deal to answer for.”
“I’ll answer to you, sir, not to … to those damned gatortails. Nor to a Terran who’s so busy toadying to them he doesn’t care what happens to his fellow human beings. My God, sir, you let Merseians search Imperial ships!”
“I had my orders,” Enriques replied.
“But Hauksberg, you rank him!”
“Formally and in certain procedural matters. He holds a direct Imperial mandate, though. It empowers him to negotiate temporary agreements with Merseia, which then become policy determinants.”
Flandry heard the least waver in those tones. He pounced. “You protested your orders, sir. Didn’t you?”
“I sent a report on my opinion to frontier HQ. No reply has yet been received. In any event, there are only six Merseian men-of-war here, none above Planet class, plus some unarmed cargo carriers told off to help them.” Enriques smacked hand on knee. “Why am I arguing with you? At the very least, if you wanted to see me, you could have stayed aboard the Rieskessel.”
“And afterward been given to the Merseians, sir?”
“Perhaps. The possibility should not have influenced you. Remember your oath.”
Flandry made a circle around the room. His hands writhed behind his back. Dragoika laid fingers on sword hilt. “No,” he said to her in Kursovikian. “No matter what happens.”
He spun on his heel and looked straight at Enriques. “Sir, I had another reason. What I brought from Merseia is a list of numbers. You’d undoubtedly have passed them on. But they do need a direct check, to make sure I’m right about what they mean. And if I am right, whoever goes to look may run into a fight. A space battle. Escalation, which you’re forbidden to practice. You couldn’t order such a mission the way things have been set up to bind you. You’d have to ask for the authority. And on what basis? On my say-so, me, a baby ex-cadet, a mutineer, a traitor. You can imagine how they’d buckpass. At best, a favorable decision wouldn’t come for weeks. Months, more likely. Meanwhile the war would drag on. Men would get killed. Men like my buddy, Jan van Zuyl, with his life hardly begun, with forty or fifty years of Imperial service in him.”
Enriques spoke so softly that one heard the wind whittering off the sea, through the ancient streets outside. “Ensign van Zuyl was killed in action four days ago.”
“Oh, no.” Flandry closed his eyes.
“Conflict has gotten to the point where—we and the Merseians respect each other’s base areas, but roving aircraft fight anyplace else they happen to meet.”
“And still you let them search us.” Flandry paused. “I’m sorry, sir. I know you hadn’t any choice. Please let me finish. It’s even possible my information would be discredited, never acted on. Hard to imagine, but … well, we have so many bureaucrats, so many people in high places like Lord Hauksberg who insists the enemy doesn’t really mean harm … and Brechdan Ironrede, God, but he’s clever … I couldn’t risk it. I had to work things so you, sir, would have a free choice.”
“You?” Enriques raised his brows. “Ensign Dominic Flandry, all by himself?”
“Yes, sir. You have discretionary power, don’t you? I mean, when extraordinary situations arise, you can take what measures are indicated, without asking HQ first. Can’t you?”
“Of course. As witness these atmospheric combats.” Enriques leaned forward, forgetting to stay sarcastic.
“Well, sir, this is an extraordinary situation. You’re supposed to stay friends with the Kursovikians. But you can see I’m the Terran they care about. Their minds work that way. They’re barbaric, used to personal leadership; to them, a distant government is no government; they feel a blood obligation to me—that sort of thing. So to preserve the alliance, you must deal with me. I’m a renegade, but you must.”
“And so?”
“So if you don’t dispatch a scout into space, I’ll tell the Sisterhood to dissolve the alliance.”
“What?” Enriques started. Dragoika bristled.
“I’ll sabotage the whole Terran effort,” Flandry said. “Terra has no business on Starkad. We’ve been trapped, conned, blued and tattooed. When you present physical evidence, photographs, measurements, we’ll all go home. Hell, I’ll give you eight to one the Merseians go home as soon as you tell old Runei what you’ve done. Get your courier off first, of course, to make sure he doesn’t use those warships to blast us into silence. But then call him and tell him.”
“There are no Terran space combat units in this system.”
Flandry grinned. The blood was running high in him. “Sir, I don’t believe the Imperium is that stupid. There has to be some provision against the Merseians suddenly marshaling strength. If nothing else, a few warcraft orbiting ’way outside. We can flit men to them. A roundabout course, so the enemy’ll think it’s only another homebound ship. Right?”