“Yes, I remember now. Talk on. Please, Dominic. I have to be nothing except practical for a while, or I’ll fall apart.”
“Me too. Well, I still believe my assessment was confirmed when we made such trouble-free contact with your father. Chives had been in Zorkagrad for days. Aycharaych would have found him, read him, and prepared a trap to spring on us the minute we arrived. Anything else would have been an unnecessary gamble.” Bleakness softened: “You know, I went into the manor house using every psychotrick they ever drilled into me to keep my knowledge of where you were out of conscious thought, and ready to swallow the old poison pill on the spot should matters go awry.”
“What?” She turned her head toward him. “Why, you … you told me to leave the rendezvous if you didn’t return by sunset—but—Oh, Dominic, no!”
Then she did weep. He comforted her as best he could. Meanwhile he found a place to stop, a grove on the rim beneath which he could taxi and be sheltered from the sky.
She gasped back to self-mastery and bade him tell her the rest of his thoughts. “I feel certain what caused the attack tonight was the capture of your father’s courier,” he said. “He must have been interrogated hastily. Aycharaych would have found out about our cabin, whether or not your father explicitly told his man. But a quick narcoquiz by nontelepaths—” He scowled into murk. “The problem is, what made the enemy suspicious of him? He wasn’t carrying any written message, and his cover story was plausible. Unless—”
He leaned forward, snapped a switch. “Let’s try for news.”
“The next regular ’cast is in about half an hour,” Kossara said in a tiny voice, “if that hasn’t changed too.”
He tuned in the station she named. Ballet dancers moved to cruelly happy music. He held her close and murmured.
A woman’s countenance threw the program out. Terror distorted it. “Attention!” she screeched. “Special broadcast! Emergency! We have just received word from a spokesman of the Zamok—officers of the Imperial Navy have arrested Gospodar Miyatovich for high treason. Citizens are required to remain calm and orderly. Those who disobey can be shot. And … and weather satellites report a nuclear explosion in the Dubina Dolyina area—neighborhood of the voivode’s residence—attempts to phone there have failed. The voivode was, is … the Gospodar’s brother-in-law … No announcement about whether he was trying to rebel or—Stay calm! Don’t move till we know more! Ex-except … the city police office just called in—blast shelters will be open to those who wish to enter. I repeat, blast shelters will be open—”
Repetition raved on for minutes. Beneath it, Flandry snarled, “If ever they hope to provoke their war, they’ve reckoned this is their last and maybe their best chance.”
The newsroom vanished. “Important recorded announcement,” said a man in Dennitzan uniform. “A dangerous agent of Merseia is at large in Zorkagrad or vicinity.” What must be a portrait from some xenological archive, since it was not of Chives, flashed onto the screen. “He landed eight days ago, posing as a peaceful traveler. Four days ago” (the computer must redub every 18.8 hours) “he was identified, but fought his way free of arrest and disappeared. He is of this species, generally known as Shalmuan. When last seen he wore a white kilt and had taken a blaster from a patrolman after injuring the entire squad. I repeat, your government identifies him as a Merseian secret agent, extremely dangerous because of his mission as well as his person. If you see him, do not take risks. Above all, do not try talking with him. If he cannot safely be killed, report the sighting to your nearest military post. A reward of 10,000 gold dinars is offered for information leading to his death or capture. Dead or alive, he himself is worth a reward of 50,000—”
Air hissed between Kossara’s teeth. Flandry sat moveless for minutes before he said stonily, “That’s how. Somebody, in some fashion, recognized Chives. That meant I was around, and most likely you. That meant—any contact between your family and the Gospodar—yes.”
Kossara wept anew, in sorrow and in rage.
Yet at the end it was she who lifted her head and said, hoarse but level-toned, “I’ve thought of where we might go, Dominic, and what we might try to do.”
XVI
Clouds and a loud raw wind had blown in across the ocean. Morning along the Obala, the east coast of Rodna, was winterlike, sky the color of lead, sea the colors of iron and gunmetal. But neither sky nor sea was quiet. Beneath the overcast a thin smoky wrack went flying; surf cannonaded and exploded on reefs and beaches.
All Nanteiwon boats were in, big solid hulls moored behind the jetty or tied at the wharf. Above the dunes the fisher village huddled. Each house was long and wide as an ychan family needed, timbers tarred black, pillars that upheld the porch carved and brightly painted with ancestral symbols, blue-begrown sod roof cable-anchored against hurricanes, a spacious and sturdy sight. But there were not many houses. Beyond them reached the flatlands the dwellers cultivated, fields harvested bare and brown, trees a-toss by roadsides, on the horizon a vague darkening which betokened the ringwall of the Kazan. The air smelled of salt and distances.
Inside the home of Ywodh were warmth, sun-imitating fluorescents, musky odor of bodies, growls to drown out the piping at the windows. Some forty males had crowded between the frescoed walls of the mootroom, while more spilled throughout the building. They wore their common garb, tunic in bright colors thrown over sinewy green frame and secured by a belt which held the knuckleduster knife. But this was no common occasion. Perched on tails and feet, muscles knotted, they stared at the three on the honor-dais.
Two were human. One they knew well, Kossara Vymezal. She used to come here often with Trohdwyr, brother to Khwent, Yffal, drowned Qythwy … How weary she looked. The other was a tall man who bore a mustache, frosted brown hair, eyes the hue of today’s heaven.
Ywodh, Hand of the Vach Anochrin, steadcaptain of Nanteiwon, raised his arms. “Silence!” he called. “Hark.” When he had his desire, he brought his gaunt, scarred head forward and told them:
“You have now heard of the outrages done and the lies proclaimed. Between dawn, when I asked you to keep ashore today, and our meeting here, I was in phonetalk up and down the Obala. Not an ychan leader but swore us aid. We know what Merseian rule would bring.
“Let us know, too, how empty of hope is a mere rebellion against rebellion. We have boats, civilian aircars, sporting guns; a revolutionary government would have military flyers and armored groundcars, spacecraft, missiles, energy weapons, gases, combat shielding. The plotters have ignored us partly because they took for granted we care little about a change of human overlords and might welcome Merseians—untrue—but mainly because they see us as well-nigh powerless against their crews—true.
“Can we then do aught? These two have made me believe it. Rebellion can be forestalled. Yet we’ve netted a flailfish. We need care as much as courage.
“To most of us, what’s gone on of late in Zorkagrad and in space has been troubling, even frightening, and not understandable, like an evil dream. Therefore we went about our work, trusting Gospodar Miyatovich and his councillors to do what was right for Dennitza. Last night’s tale of his arrest as a traitor stunned us. We’d have stood bewildered until too late for anything—this was intended—had not Kossara Vymezal and Dominic Flandry come to us in our darkness.