No guards had come in with their chief. They waited beyond the archway curtains, which were not too soundproof to pass a cry for help. Opposite, seen through a window, waited Talwin’s lethal summer. Blue-black and enormous, a thunderhead was piling up over the stockade, where the banners of those Vachs and regions that had members here whipped on their staffs.
Ydwyr’s mouth drew into thinner lines. “I could have been trusted,” he said. Flandry didn’t believe that mere wounded vanity spoke. Had a prerogative been infringed? What was Ydwyr?
He wore a gray robe without emblems; at its sash hung only a purse. He was taller than Morioch, but lean, wrinkled, aging. At first he had spoken softly, when the humans were brought before him from their quarters—on his demand after he learned of their arrival. As soon as the commandant had given him a slight amount of back talk, he had stiffened, and power fairly blazed from him.
Morioch confronted it stoutly. “That needs no utterance,” he said. “I hope the datholch accepts that I saw no reason to trouble you with matters outside your own purposes here.”
“Does the qanryf know every conceivable limit of my purposes?”
“No…however—” Raided but game, Morioch redonned formality. “May I explain everything to the datholch?”
Ydwyr sighed permission. Morioch caught a breath and commenced:
“When the Brythioch stopped by, these months agone, her chief intelligence officer gave me a word that did not then seem very interesting. You recall she’d been at Irumclaw, the Terran frontier post. There a mei—I have his name on record but don’t remember it—had come on a scoutship pilot he’d met previously. The pilot, the male before you here, was running surveillance as part of his training for their Intelligence Corps. Normally that’d have meant nothing—standard procedure of theirs—but this particular male had been on Merseia in company with a senior Terran agent. Those two got involved in something which is secret from me but, I gather, caused major trouble to the Roidhunate. Protector Brechdan Ironrede was said to have been furious.”
Ydwyr started. Slowly he lifted one bony green hand and said, “You have not told me the prisoner’s name.”
“Let the datholch know this is Junior Lieutenant Dominic Flandry.”
Silence fell, except for the wind whose rising skirl began to pierce the heavily insulated walls. Ydwyr’s gaze probed and probed. Djana whispered frantic, repeated prayers. Flandry felt the sweat slide down his ribs. He needed all his will to hold steady.
“Yes,” Ydwyr said at last, “I have heard somewhat about him.”
“Then the datholch may appreciate this case more than I do,” Morioch said, looking relieved. “To be honest, I knew nothing of Flandry till the Brythioch—”
“Continue your account,” Ydwyr said unceremoniously.
Morioch’s relief vanished, but he plowed on: “As the datholch wishes. Whatever the importance of Flandry himself—he appears a cub to me—he was associated with this other agent…khraich, yes, it comes back…Max Abrams. And Abrams was, is, definitely a troublemaker of the worst sort. Flandry appears to be a protégé of his. Perhaps, already, an associate? Could his assignment to Irumclaw involve more than showed on the skin?
“This much the mei reported to the chief intelligence officer of his ship. The officer, in turn, directed our agents in the city”—Rax, of course, and those in Rax’s pay, Flandry thought through the loudening wind—“to keep close watch on this young male. If he did anything unusual, it should be investigated as thoroughly as might be.
“The officer asked me to stand by. As I’ve said, nothing happened for months, until I’d almost forgotten. We get so many leads that never lead anywhere in intelligence work.
“But lately a courier torpedo arrived. The message was that Flandry was collaborating closely but, apparently, secretly, with the leader of an underworld gang. The secrecy is understandable—ultra-illegal behavior—and our agents’ first guess was that normal corruption was all that was involved.” Scorn freighted Morioch’s voice. “However, following orders, they infiltrated the operation. They learned what it was.”
He described Wayland, to the extent of Ammon’s knowledge, and Ydwyr nodded. “Yes,” the old Merseian said, “I understand. The planet is too far from home to be worth our while—at present—but it is not desirable that Terrans reoccupy it.”
“Our Irumclaw people are good,” Morioch said. “They had to make a decision and act on their own. Their plan succeeded. Does the datholch agree they should get extra reward?”
“They had better,” Ydwyr said dryly, “or they might decide Terrans are more generous masters. You have yet to tell them to eliminate those who know about the lost planet, correct?—Well, but what did they do?”
“The datholch sees this female. After Flandry had investigated the planet, she captured him and brought his boat to a section where our pickets were bound to detect it.”
“Hun-n-nh…is she one of ours?”
“No, she thought she was working for a rival human gang. But the datholch may agree she shows a talent for that kind of undertaking.”
Flandry couldn’t help it, too much compassion welled through his despair, he bent his head down toward Djana’s and muttered: “Don’t be afraid. They’re pleased with what you did for them. I expect they’ll pay you something and let you go.”
To spy on us—driven by blackmail as well as money—but you can probably vanish into the inner Empire. Or…maybe you’d like the work. Your species never treated you very kindly.
“And that is the whole tale, qanryf?” Ydwyr asked.
“Yes,” Morioch said. “Now the datholch sees the importance. Bad enough that we had to capture a boat. That’ll provoke a widespread search, which might stumble on places like Talwin. The odds are against it, true, and we really had no choice. But we cannot release Flandry.”
“I did not speak of that,” Ydwyr said, cold again. “I did, and do, want both these beings in my custody.”
“But—”
“Do you fear they may escape?”
“No. Certainly not. But the datholch must know…the value of this prisoner as a subject for interrogation—”
“The methods your folk would use would leave him of no value for anything else,” Ydwyr rapped. “And he can’t have information we don’t already possess; I assume the Intelligence Corps is not interested in his private life. He is here only through a coincidence.”
“Can the datholch accept that strong a coincidence? Flandry met the mei by chance, yes. But that he, of every possible pilot, went off to the lost planet as a happenstance: to that I must say no.”
“I say yes. He is precisely the type to whom such things occur. If one exposes oneself to life, qanryf, life will come to one. I have my own uses for him and will not see him ruined. I also want to learn more about this female. They go into my keeping.”
Morioch flushed and well-nigh roared: “The datholch forgets that Flandry worked tail-entwined with Abrams to thwart the Protector!”
Ydwyr lifted a hand, palm down, and chopped it across his breast. Flandry sucked in a breath. That gesture was seldom used, and never by those who did not have the hereditary right. Morioch swallowed, bent head above folded hands, and muttered, “I beg the datholch’s forgiveness.” Merseians didn’t often beg, either.