Capacitors discharged. Their energy content was limited; that was why the gun must be laid by hand, to conserve every last erg for revenge. Flame spat across kilometers. Steel sublimed. A wound opened. Air gushed forth, white with condensing water vapor.
The destroyer applied backward thrust. Flandry followed, holding his beam to the same spot, driving inward and inward. From four other pieces of Sabik, death vomited.
“Man,” Flandry chanted, “but you’ve got a Tigery by the tail!”
Remorselessly, spin took him out of sight. He waited, fuming. When he could again aim, the destroyer was further away, and she had turned one battleship section into gas. But the rest fought on. He joined his beam to theirs. She was retreating under gravities. Why didn’t she go hyper and get the hell out of here? Maybe she couldn’t. He himself had been shooting to disable her quantum-field generator. Maybe he’d succeeded.
“Kursoviki!” Dragoika shrieked at the wheel. “Archers all! Janjevar va-Radovik for aye!”
A gun swiveled toward them. He could see it, tiny at its distance, thin and deadly. He shifted aim. His fire melted the muzzle shut.
The destroyer scuttled away. And then, suddenly, there was New Brazil. Flandry darted from his seat, caught Dragoika to him, held her faceplate against his breast and closed his own eyes. When they looked again, the Merseian was white-hot meteorites. They hugged each other in their armor.
Umbriel, Antarctica, and New Braziclass="underline" torn, battered, lame, filled with the horribly wounded, haunted by their dead, but victorious, victorious—neared the planet. The scoutships had long since finished their work and departed Empire-ward. Yet Ranjit Singh would give his men a look at the prize they had won.
On the cruiser’s bridge, Flandry and Dragoika stood with him. The planet filled the forward viewscreen. It was hardly larger than Luna. Like Terra’s moon, it was bereft of air, water, life; such had bled away to space over billions of years. Mountains bared fangs at the stars, above ashen plains. Barren, empty, blind as a skull, the rogue rushed on to its destiny.
“One planet,” the acting captain breathed. “One wretched sunless planet.”
“It’s enough, sir,” Flandry said. Exhaustion pulsed through him in huge soft waves. To sleep … to sleep, perchance to dream … “On a collision course with Saxo. It’ll strike inside of five years. That much mass, simply falling from infinity, carries the energy of three years’ stellar radiation. Which will have to be discharged somehow, in a matter of seconds. And Saxo is an F5, shortlived, due to start expanding in less than a begayear. The instabilities must already be building up. The impact—Saxo will go nova. Explode.”
“And our fleet—”
“Yes, sir. What else? The thing’s wildly improbable. Interstellar distances are so big. But the universe is bigger still. No matter how unlikely, anything which is possible must happen sometime. This is one occasion when it does. Merseian explorers chanced on the datum. Brechdan saw what it meant. He could develop the conflict on Starkad, step by step, guiding it, nursing it, keeping it on schedule … till our main strength was marshaled there, just before the blowup came. We wouldn’t be likely to see the invader. It’s coming in ’way off the ecliptic, and has a very low albedo, and toward the end would be lost in Saxo’s glare and traveling at more than 700 kilometers per second. Nor would we be looking in that direction. Our attention would be all on Brechdan’s forces. They’d be prepared, after the captains opened their sealed orders. They’d know exactly when to dash away on hyperdrive. Ours—well, the initial radiation will move at the speed of light. It would kill the crews before they knew they were dead. An hour or so later, the first wave of gases would vaporize their ships. The Empire would be crippled and the Merseians could move in. That’s why there’s war on Starkad.”
Ranjit Singh tugged his beard. The pain seemed to strengthen him. “Can we do anything? Plant bombs to blow this object apart, maybe?”
“I don’t know, sir. Offhand, I doubt it. Too many fragments would stay on essentially the same path, I believe. Of course, we can evacuate Starkad. There are other planets.”
“Yes. We can do that.”
“Will you tell me now?” Dragoika asked.
Flandry did. He had not known she could weep.
18
Highport lay quiet. Men filled the ugly barracks, drifted along the dusty streets, waited for orders and longed for home. Clamor of construction work, grumble of traffic, whine of aircraft bound to battle, were ended. So likewise, after the first tumultuous celebrations, was most merrymaking. The war’s conclusion had left people too dazed. First, the curt announcement that Admiral Enriques and Fodaich Runei were agreed on a cease-fire while they communicated with their respective governments. Then, day after day of not knowing. Then the arrival of ships; the proclamation that, Starkad being doomed, Empire and Roidhunate joined in hoping for a termination of the interracial conflict; the quick departure of the Merseians, save for a few observers; the imminent departure of most Imperial Navy personnel; the advent of civilian experts to make preliminary studies for a massive Terran project of another sort. And always the rumors, scuttlebutt, so-and-so knew somebody who knew for a fact that—How could you carry on as if this were ordinary? Nothing would ever again be quite ordinary. At night, you saw the stars and shivered.
Dominic Flandry walked in silence. His boots made a soft, rhythmic thud. The air was cool around him. Saxo spilled radiance from an enormous blue sky. The peaks beyond Mount Narpa thrust snowfields toward the ghost of a moon. Never had the planet looked so fair.
The door was ajar to the xenological office. He entered. Desks stood vacant. John Ridenour’s staff was in the field. Their chief stayed behind, replacing sleep with stimulants as he tried to coordinate their efforts around an entire world. He was in conversation with a visitor. Flandry’s heart climbed into his throat. Lord Hauksberg!
Everyone knew Dronning Margrete had arrived yesterday, in order that his Majesty’s delegate might make a final inspection tour. Flandry had planned on keeping far out of sight. He snapped to a salute.
“Well, well.” The viscount did not rise from his chair. Only the blond sharp face turned. The elegantly clad body stayed relaxed, the voice was amused. “What have we here?”
“Ensign Flandry, sir. I—I beg pardon. Didn’t mean to interrupt. I’ll go.”
“No. Sit. Been meanin’ to get hold of you. I do remember your name, strange as that may seem.” Hauksberg nodded at Ridenour. “Go ahead. Just what is this difficulty you mention?”
The xenologist scarcely noticed the newcomer, miserable on a chair. Weariness harshened his tone. “Perhaps I can best illustrate with a typical scene, my lord, taken last week. Here’s the Sisterhood HQ in Ujanka.”
A screen showed a room whose murals related ancient glories. A Terran and several Tigery females in the plumes and striped cloaks of authority sat in front of a vidiphone. Flandry recognized some. He cursed the accident which brought him here at this minute. His farewells in the city had hurt so much.
Ostrova, the mistress, glared at the piscine face projected before her. “Never,” she snapped. “Our rights and needs remain with us. Better death than surrender what our mothers died to gain.”
The view shifted, went underwater, where also a human team observed and recorded. Again Flandry saw the Temple of Sky, from within. Light pervaded the water, turned it into one emerald where the lords of the Seafolk floated free. They had summoned Isinglass and Evenfall for expert knowledge. Those I never did get a chance to say good-bye to, Flandry thought, and now I never will. Through the colonnade he looked down on elfin Shellgleam.