“The datholch’s command is heard and shall be relayed. Does anyone know how to operate the vessel?”
Flandry turned on his second machine. It went “Kh-h-hr,” his all-purpose response. In this context, he hoped, it would pass for a rasping of scorn. A pilot who cant figure that out in five minutes, when we use the same basic design, should be broken down to galley swabber and set to peeling electrons. He made his first recorder say: “Land in the open circle at the center of the village. We have him in a house adjacent. Hurry! Now I must return to the Ruadrath and repair what damage I can. Do not interrupt me until the boat is down. Signing off. Honor to the God, the Race, and the Roidhun!”
He heard the response, stopped sending, and tuned the conference back in. It sounded as if fur was about to fly.
So, better not dawdle here. Besides, Jake should arrive in minutes if his scheme worked. If.
Well, they wouldn’t be intimately familiar with Ydwyr’s speech in the Navy section…aside from high-ranking officers like Morioch, who might be bypassed for the sake of speed, seeing as how Merseia encouraged initiative on the part of juniors…or if a senior did get a replay, he might not notice anything odd, or if he did he might put it down to a sore throat…or, or, or—
Flandry scrambled back into the overclothes he had shucked while working. He stuffed some cord in a pocket. A chronodial said close to an hour had fled. It stopped when he fired a blaster bolt at the main radio transmitter. On his way out, he sabotaged the engine too, by lifting a shield plate and shooting up the computer that regulated the grav projectors. He hoped not to kill anyone in his escape, but he didn’t want them sharing the news before he was long gone. Of course, if he must kill he would, and lose no sleep afterward, if there was an afterward.
The air stung his injury. He loped over creaking snow to Rrinn’s house. Closer, he moved cautiously, and stopped at the entrance to squeeze his eyes shut while raising his goggles. Charging indoors without dark-adapted pupils would be sheer tomfoolishness. Also dickfoolishness, harryfoolishness, and—Stunner in right hand, blaster in left, he pushed by the curtain. It rustled stiffly into place behind him.
Merseians and Ruadrath swiveled about where they tail-sat. They were at the far end of the single chamber, their parties on opposite daises. A fleeting part of Flandry noticed how vivid the murals were at their backs and regretted that he was about to lose the friendship of the artist.
Djana cried out. Rrinn hissed. Ydwyr uttered a sentence in no language the man had heard before. Several males of either species started off the platforms. Flandry brandished his blaster and shouted in Eriau: “Stay where you are! This thing’s set to wide beam! I can cook the lot of you in two shots!”
Tensed and snarling, they returned to their places. Djana remained standing, reaching toward Flandry, mouth open and working but no sound coming forth. Ydwyr snapped into his vocalizer. Rrinn snapped back. The Terran could guess: “What is this treachery?”
“Indeed we had him alive; yet I know not what he would seize.”
He interrupted: “I regret I must stun you. No harm will be done, aside from possible headaches when you awaken. If anyone tries to attack me, I’ll blast him. The blast will likely kill others. Rrinn, I give you a few breaths to tell your followers this.”
“You wouldn’t!” Djana protested wildly.
“Not to you, sweetheart,” Flandry said, while Ruadrath words spat around him. “Come over here by me.”
She gulped, clenched fists, straightened and regarded him squarely. “No.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t turn my coat like you.”
“I wasn’t aware I had.” Flandry glared at Ydwyr. “What have you done to her?”
“I showed her truth,” the Merseian answered. He had regained his calm. “What do you expect to accomplish?”
“You’ll see,” Flandry told him. To Rrinn: “Are you finished?”
“Ssnaga. ” No matter the Ruad was of another species; you could not mistake unutterable hatred.
Flandry sighed. “I grieve. We traveled well together. Good hunting be yours for always.”
The guide ray struck and struck. The Ruadrath scuttled for shelter, but found nothing high enough. The Merseians took their medicine with iron dignity. After a minute, none among them was conscious save Ydwyr and Djana.
“Now.” Flandry tossed her the loop of cord. “Tie his wrists at his back, run his tail up there and make it fast, then pass down the end and hobble him.”
“No!” she shrieked.
“Girl,” said the gaunt, sun-darkened, wounded visage with the frost in its beard, “more’s involved than my life, and I’m fond of living to start with. I need a hostage. I’d prefer not to drag him. If I have to, though, I’ll knock you both out.”
“Obey,” Ydwyr told her. He considered Flandry. “Well done,” he said. “What is the next stage of your plan?”
“No comment,” the man replied. “I don’t wish to be discourteous, but what you don’t know you can’t arrange to counteract.”
“Correct. It becomes clear that your prior achievements were no result of luck. My compliments, Dominic Flandry.”
“I thank the datholch. Get cracking, woman!”
Djana’s gaze went bewildered between them. She struggled not to cry.
Her job of tying was less than expert; but Flandry, who supervised, felt Ydwyr couldn’t work out of it fast. When she was through, he beckoned her to him. “I want our playmate beyond your reach,” he said. Looking down into the blue eyes, he smiled. There was no immediate need now to aim a gun. He laid both hands on her waist. “And I want you in my reach.”
“Nicky,” she whispered, “you don’t know what you’re doing. Please, please listen.”
“Later.” A sonic boom made pots jump on a shelf. In spite of the dictatorship he had clamped down on himself, something leaped likewise in Flandry. “Hoy, that’s my ticket home.”
He peered past the curtain. Yes, Giacobini-Zinner, dear needle-nosed Jake, bulleting groundward, hovering, settling in a whirl of kicked-up snow…Wait! Far off in the sky whence she’d come—
Flandry groaned. It looked like another spacecraft. Morioch or somebody had played cautious and sent an escort.
Well, he’d reckoned with that possibility. A Comet had the legs over most other types, if not all; and in an atmosphere, especially Talwin’s—
The lock opened. The gangway extruded. A Merseian appeared, presumably a physician since he carried the medikit he must have ferreted out on his way here. He wasn’t wearing an electric coldsuit, only Navy issue winter clothes. Suddenly it was comical beyond belief to see him stand there, glancing puzzled around, with his tail in a special stocking. Flandry had seldom worked harder than to hold back whoops and yell, in his best unaided imitation of a Merseian voice: “Come here! On the double! Your pilot too!”
“Pilot—”
“Hurry!”
The doctor called into the boat. Both Merseians descended and started across the ground. Flandry stood bowstring-tense, squinting out the slit between jamb and curtain, back to the captives he already had, out, in, out, in. If somebody got suspicious or somebody shouted a warning before the newcomers were in stunbeam range, he’d have to blast them dead and attempt a dash for the vessel.
They entered. He zapped them.
Recovering the medikit, he waved his gun. “Let’s go, Ydwyr.” He hesitated. “Djana, you can stay if you want.”
“No,” the girl answered, nigh too weakly to hear. “I’ll come.”