“You’ve been harping for some time on the need for my cooperation,” said Flandry. “But you’ve not made it clear what you want of me.”
“First, I want to know for certain why you came here,” Warouw met his eyes unblinkingly. “If you do not resist it, a light hypnoprobing will get that out of you quite easily. Then you must help me prepare false evidence of your own accidental death, and head off any Terran investigation. Thereafter you will be appointed my special assistant-for life. You will advise me on how to modernize the Guard Corps and perpetuate this world’s isolation.” He smiled with something like shyness. “I think we might both enjoy working together. We are not so unlike, you and I.”
“Suppose I don’t cooperate,” said Flandry.
Warouw flushed and snapped: “Then I must undertake a deep hypnoprobing and drag your information out of you. I confess I have had very little practice with the instrument since acquiring it. Even in skilled hands, you know, the hypno-probe at full strength is apt to destroy large areas of cerebral cortex. In unskilled hands-But I will at least get some information out of you before your mind evaporates!”
He bowed. “I shall expect your decision tomorrow. Good rest.”
The door closed behind him.
Flandry paced in silence. He would have traded a year of life for a pack of Terran cigarets, but he hadn’t even been supplied with locals. It was like a final nail driven into his coffin.
What to do?
Cooperate? Yield to the probe? But that meant allowing his mind to ramble in free association, under the stimulus of the machine. Warouw would hear everything Flandry knew about the Empire in general and Naval Intelligence in particular. Which was one devil of a lot.
In itself, that would be harmless-if the knowledge stayed on this planet. But it was worth too much. A bold man like Warouw was certain to exploit it The Merseians, for instance, would gladly establish a non-interfering protectorate over Unan Besar-it would only tie down a cruiser or two-in exchange for the information about Terran defenses which Warouw could feed them in shrewd driblets. Or better, perhaps, Warouw could take a ship himself and search out those barbarians with spacecraft Flandry knew of: who would stuff the vessel of Warouw with loot from Terran planets which he could tell them how to raid.
Either way, the Long Night was brought that much closer.
Of course, Dominic Flandry would still be alive, as a sort of domesticated animal. He couldn’t decide if it was worth it or not.
Thunder rolled in the hills. The sun sank behind clouds which boiled up to cover the sky. A few fat ram drops smote a darkening garden.
I wonder if I get anything more to eat today, thought Flandry in his weariness.
He hadn’t turned on the lights. His room was nearly black. When the door opened, he was briefly dazzled. The figure that stepped through was etched against corridor illumination like a troll.
Flandry retreated, fists clenched. After a moment he realized it was only a Biocontrol uniform, long robe with flaring shoulders. But did they want him already ? His heart thuttered in anticipation.
“Easy, there,” said a vaguely familiar voice.
Lightning split heaven. In an instant’s white glare, Flandry made out shaven head, glowing brand, and the broken face of Kemul the mugger.
XII
He sat down. His legs wouldn’t hold him.
“Where in the nine foul hells is your light switch?” grumbled the basso above him. “We’ve little enough time. They may spare you if we are caught, but the cage for Kemul. Quick!”
The Terran got shakily back on his feet. “Stay away from the window,” he said. A dim amazement was in him, that he could speak without stuttering. “I’d hate for some passerby to see us alone together. He might misunderstand the purity of our motives. Ah.” Light burst from the ceiling.
Kemul took a rich man’s garments from under his robe and tossed them on the bed: sarong, curly-toed slippers, blouse, vest, turban with an enormous plume. “Best we can do,” he said. “Biocontrol disguise and a painted brand would not go for you. Your scalp would be paler than your face, and your face itself sticking out for all to see. But some great merchant or landowner, come here to talk of some policy matter-Also, speaking earnestly with you as we go, Kemul will not have to observe so many fine points of politeness and rule which he never learned.”
Flandry tumbled into the clothes. “How’d you get in here at all?” he demanded.
Kemul’s thick lips writhed upward. “That is another reason we must hurry, you. Two dead Guards outside.” He opened the door, stooped, and yanked the corpses in. Their necks were broken with one karate chop apiece. A firearm would have made too much noise, Flandry thought in a daze. Even a cyanide needier with a compressed air cartridge would have to be drawn and fired, which might give time for a warning to be yelled. But a seeming Biocontrol man could walk right past the sentries, deep in meditation, and kill them in one second as they saluted him. That ability of Kemul’s must have counted for enough that his cohorts (who?) sent him in rather than somebody of less noticeable appearance.
“But how’d you get this far, I mean?” Flandry persisted a trifle wildly.
“Landed outside the hangar, as they all do. Said to the attendant, Kemul was here from Pegunungan Gradjugang on urgent business and might have to depart again in minutes. Walked into the building, cornered a Guard alone in a hall, wrung from him where you were being kept, threw the body out a window into some bushes. Once or twice a white-robe hailed Kemul, but he said he was in great haste and went on.”
Flandry whistled. It would have been a totally impossible exploit on any other world he had ever seen. The decadence of Biocontrol and its Guard Corps was shown naked by this fact of an enemy walking into their ultimate stronghold without so much as being questioned. To be sure, no one in all the history of Unan Besar had ever dreamed of such a raid; but still-
But still it was a fantastic gamble, with the odds against it mounting for each second of delay.
“I sometimes think we overwork Pegunungan Gradjugang.” Flandry completed his ensemble. “Have a weapon for me?”
“Here.” Kemul drew out of his robe a revolver as antiquated as the one liberated from Pradjung (how many eons ago?). The same gesture showed his Terran blaster in an arm sheath. “Hide it. No needless fighting.”
“Absolutely! You wouldn’t believe how meek my intentions are. Let’s go.”
The hall was empty. Flandry and Kemul went down it, not too fast, mumbling at each other as if deep in discourse. At a cross-corridor they met a technician, who bowed his head to Kemul’s insignia but couldn’t entirely hide astonishment.
The technician continued the way they had come. If he passed Flandry’s closed door and happened to know that two Guards were supposed to be outside-
The hall debouched in a spacious common room. Between its pillars and gilded screens, a dozen or so off-duty Biocontrol people sat smoking, reading, playing games, watching a taped dance program. Flan dry and Kemul started across toward the main entrance. A middle-aged man with a Purity Control symbol on his robe intercepted them.
“I beg your pardon, Colleague,” he bowed. “I have not had the pleasure of meeting you before, though I thought I knew all full initiates.” His eyes were lively with interest. A tour of duty here must be a drab chore for most personnel, any novelty welcomed. “And I had no idea we were entertaining a civilian of such obvious importance.”
Flandry bent his own head above respectfully folded hands, hoping the plume would shadow his face enough. A couple of men, cross-legged above a chessboard, looked up in curiosity and kept on looking.