“Carry on, Chives,” Flandry said helplessly.
Wind made a steady roar about the hull, which trembled under its force. Rain smote like hammers. Lightning flew, thunder rattled teeth in jaws. No matter how well outfitted, a skinny old Shalmuan aflit in that fury, in the grasp of that gravity, could well lose control and be dashed to his death. And still he plays his part. Well, it’s the sole part he can play, alone among aliens; therefore I must play mine without ever faltering. We can never really communicate, but this dance we dance between us does say, “I care for you.”
Flandry need not have worried, though. It soon became a joy to watch how elegantly Chives darted through the air. He had set his blaster to lowest beam, and the onsars had thick hides. However, the flicks of energy sufficed to herd them, and then chastise them. They shuffled aboard as meek as taxpayers.
Flandry whooped laughter. “How about that, Banner?” he cried.
Her voice was strained. “The hull screens Yewwl’s signal. We’re cut off. Can you relay?”
“Nothing so complex, I’m afraid.”
“Well, then, get to your destination fast!” she shrilled.
Chives came back inboard. Flandry prepared to lift.
Banner spoke in a subdued tone. “I’m sorry, Dominic. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. Nerves overstrung.”
“Sure, I understand, dear,” he said. Inwardly: Do I? How deep into her soul does that linkage go? She can break it for a while without pain, but what if it broke forever?
Hooligan rose, leveled off, and lined out east-northeast. She had to fly low, lest by malevolent luck a ship going to or from Port Asmundsen should notice. Despite her ample capabilities, Flandry didn’t like it. He felt boxed in.
Regardless, the journey was uneventful—for him and Chives; surely not for the Ramnuans, who must be terrified in their metal cave, weighing a seventh of what they ought to, under light they saw as harsh blue-white, while cloven air rumbled and screamed outside and that which they breathed grew foul. Banner could have reassured Yewwl, but Yewwl and her followers now had naught but courage to uphold them. A scanner showed them iron-steady. Flandry admired.
The storm fell behind. He passed fully into this planet’s long, long night. Plains grew frost-silvery; snow whitened hillcrests, and not all that fell in the dark would melt when day returned. Had he lacked optical amplification, he would have been virtually blind. Diris was a crescent, half Luna size though brighter; Tiglaia showed tiny; Elaveli was not aloft, and would have seemed smaller yet. The visible stars were few and dim, save for the red spark of Antares, and the Milky Way was lost to sight.
Five thousand kilometers rolled beneath, and he approached a coast. Ahead glimmered the Chromatic Hills, where Dukeston stood amidst its mines and refineries and—what else was there. Beyond, the St. Carl River ran down into brackish marshlands, once rich with life and still, he had heard, worth harvesting. Beyond those, an ocean lay sluggish until winds raised monstrous billows upon it. In recent years, the waves had brought icebergs crashing ashore.
They mustn’t detect Hooligan at the settlement.
Flandry’s navigational system identified a site he and Banner had chosen off maps, blocked from view by an outcrop which a few hours’ riding would serve to get around. He made a gingerly descent onto roughness and told the woman, flat-voiced: “We’re here.”
“Good. Let them out.” Her words quivered. “Send them on their way.”
“A minute first, just a minute,” he begged. “Listen, I can flange up an excuse for returning to Wainwright this soon. Then I’d be right there, for snatching you away if the Duke’s boys come.”
“No, Dominic.” She spoke softer than before. “We agreed otherwise. How did you say? ‘Let’s not put all our eggs in one basket.’ ” Her chuckle was tender. “You have a marvelous gift for making phrases.”
“Well, I—Look, I’ve been thinking further. Yes, you have to keep in touch with Yewwl till her task’s accomplished, or till everything falls apart for us. And, yes, in the second case, Hooligan ought to remain at large, in the faint hope that something can be done some different way. But … you probably don’t appreciate how powerfully armed she is. We can fight through anything Cairncross is likely to send, at least that he’s likely to send at first. And we can outrun everything else.”
Banner sighed. “Dominic, we discussed this before. You yourself admitted that that requires opening fire at the start, on little or no provocation. It gives us no flexibility, no chance to get more clues. It puts this station, its innocent staff, its work of centuples, in mortal danger. It alerts the Duke so thoroughly that his whole force will be mobilized to kill us or keep us at a distance. What can we do after that? Especially if we’re wrong and he is not plotting a coup. Whereas, if he merely knows you’ve been skulking about—”
“He’ll take what precautions he’s able,” Flandry interrupted, “and the precautions that involve you won’t make your future worth reaching … Well, I had to ask, but I knew you’d refuse. We’ll stay by the original plan.”
“We’re wasting time right now.”
“True. Very well, I’ll let the Ramnuans off, and Chives and I will go wait at the place agreed on.”
Incommunicado, for fear of detection. It will be a hard wait. In several ways, harder for me than for her. She’ll be in the worse peril, but she’ll be with her oath-sister.
“Goodbye, darling.”
X
Things have the vices of their virtues. Today Edwin Cairncross had reason to curse the fact that there was no interstellar equivalent of radio. He actually caught himself trying to imagine means of getting past the unfeasibility. The “instantaneous” pulses emitted by a ship in hyperdrive are detectable at an extreme range of about a light-year. They can be modulated to carry information. Unfortunately, within a few million kilometers quantum effects degrade the signal beyond recovery; even the simplest binary code becomes unintelligible. The number of relay stations that would be required between two stars of average separation is absurdly enormous; multiply by the factor necessary for just several hundred interconnections, and you find it would take more resources than the entire Empire contains.
But couldn’t something very small, simple, cheap be devised, that we can afford in such quantities? I’ll organize a research team to look into it when I am Emperor. That will also help rouse enterprise again in the human race.
Cairncross checked the thought and barked laughter. He’d have plenty to do before his throne was that secure! Until then, he should be thankful. When messages took half a month or more to go straight from Hermes to Terra, and few ships per year made the entire crossing, his realm was satisfactorily isolated. Only ambiguous hints as to what might be amiss trickled back from an undermanned Imperial legation. With patience, intelligence, sophistication, a bold leader could mount a mighty effort in obscure parts of his domain. Lacking that advantage, he could never have given flesh and steel to his desire.
Therefore, let the Empire be thankful too.
Meanwhile, though, he had no way of tracing Admiral Flandry. Where was the old devil a-prowl? The single certainty was that he had not reported in at Hermes as he was supposed to. Well, it was also known that he had left Terra, and that the Abrams bitch had disappeared under the kind of queer circumstances you’d expect him to engineer.