“No … please … not now.” Lady Diana fended him off, but in a promising way. Flandry reclined again. No hurry. The banquet and dance would take hours. Afterward, when the yacht made its leisured way home toward Terra, and champagne bubbles danced in both their heads … “Why did you say that about being on furlough?” she asked, smoothing her coiffure with slim fingers. Her luminous nail polish danced about in the twilight like flying candle flames.
Flandry got a cigaret from his own shimmerite jacket and inhaled it to life. The glow picked out his face, long, narrow, with high cheekbones and gray eyes, seal-brown hair and straight nose. He sometimes thought his last biosculp had made it too handsome, and he ought to change it again. But what the devil, he wasn’t on Terra often enough for the girls to get bored with his looks. Besides, his wardrobe, which he did take pains to keep fashionable, was expensive enough to rule out many other vanities.
“The Nyanza business was a trifle wearing, y’know,” he said, to remind her of yet another exploit of his on yet another exotic planet. “I came Home for a rest. And the Merseians are such damnably strenuous creatures. It makes me tired just to look at one, let alone spar with him.”
“You don’t have to tonight, Sir Dominic,” she smiled. “Can’t you lay all this feuding aside, just for a little while, and be friends with them? I mean, we’re all beings, in spite of these silly rivalries.”
“I’d love to relax with them, my lady. But you see, they never do.”
“Oh, come now! I’ve talked to them, often, and—”
“They can radiate all the virile charm they need,” said Flandry. For an instant his light tone was edged with acid. “But destroying the Terrestrial Empire is a full-time job.”
Then, quickly, he remembered what he was about, and picked up his usual line of banter. He wasn’t required to be an Intelligence agent all the time. Was he? When a thousand-credit bet with his friend was involved? Ivar del Bruno had insisted that Lady Diana Vinogradoff would never bestow her favors on anyone under the rank of earl. The challenge was hard to refuse, when the target was so intrinsically tempting, and when Flandry had good reason to be complacent about his own abilities. It had been a hard campaign, though, and yielding to her whim to attend the Merseian party was only a small fraction of the lengths to which he had gone.
But now, Flandry decided, if he played his cards right for a few hours more, the end would be achieved. And afterward, a thousand credits would buy a really good orgy for two at the Everest House.
Chives, valet cum pilot cum private gunman, slipped the yacht smoothly into berth at the Crystal Moon. There was no flutter of weight change, though deceleration had been swift and the internal force-field hard put to compensate. Flandry stood up, cocked his beret at a carefully rakish angle, swirled his scarlet cloak, and offered an arm to Lady Diana. They stepped through the airlock and along a transparent tube to the palace.
The woman caught a delighted gasp. “I’ve never seen it so close up,” she whispered. “Who ever made it?”
The artificial satellite had Jupiter for background, and the Milky Way and the huge cold constellations. Glass-clear walls faced infinity, curving and tumbling like water. Planar gravity fields held faceted synthetic jewels, ruby, emerald, diamond, topaz, massing several tons each, in orbit around the central minaret. One outward thrust of bubble was left at zero gee, a conservatory where mutant ferns and orchids rippled on rhythmic breezes.
“I understand it was built for Lord Tsung-Tse about a century back,” said Flandry. “His son sold it for gambling debts, and the then Merseian ambassador acquired it and had it put in orbit around Jupiter. Symbolic, eh?”
She arched questioning brows, but he thought better of explaining. His own mind ran on: Eh, for sure. I suppose it’s inevitable and so forth. Terra has been too rich for too long: we’ve grown old and content, no more high hazards for us. Whereas the Merseian Empire is fresh, vigorous, disciplined, dedicated, et tedious cetera. Personally, I enjoy decadence; but somebody has to hold off the Long Night for my own lifetime, and it looks as if I’m elected.
Then they neared the portal, where a silver spiderweb gate stood open. Ruethen himself greeted them at the head of an iridescent slideramp. Such was Merseian custom. But he bowed in Terran style and touched horny lips to Lady Diana’s hand. “A rare pleasure, I am certain.” The bass voice gave to fluent Anglic an indescribable nonhuman accent.
She considered him. The Merseian was a true mammal, but with more traces of reptile ancestry than humankind: pale green skin, hairless and finely scaled; a low spiny ridge from the head down along the backbone to the end of a long thick tail. He was broader than a man, and would have stood a sheer two meters did he not walk with a forward-stooping gait. Except for its baldness and lack of external ears, the face was quite humanoid, even good-looking in a heavy rough way. But the eyes beneath the overhanging brow ridges were two small pits of jet. Ruethen wore the austere uniform of his class, form-fitting black with silver trim. A blaster was belted at his hip.
Lady Diana’s perfectly sculped mouth curved in a smile. “Do you actually know me, my lord?” she murmured.
“Frankly, no.” A barbaric bluntness. Any nobleman of Terra would have been agile to disguise his ignorance. “But while this log does burn upon the altar stone, peace-holy be it among us. As my tribe would say in the Cold Valleys .”
“Of course you are an old friend of my escort,” she teased.
Ruethen cocked an eye at Flandry. And suddenly the man sensed tautness in that massive frame. Just for a moment, then Ruethen’s whole body became a mask. “We have met now and then,” said the Merseian dryly. “Welcome, Sir Dominic. The cloakroom slave will furnish you with a mind-screen.”
“What?” Despite himself, Flandry started.
“If you want one.” Ruethen bared powerful teeth at Lady Diana. “Will my unknown friend grant me a dance later?”
She lost her own coolness for a second, then nodded graciously. “That would be a … unique experience, my lord,” she said.
It would, at that. Flandry led her on into the ballroom. His mind worried Ruethen’s curious offer, like a dog with a bone. Why—?
He saw the gaunt black shape among the rainbow Terrans, and he knew. It went cold along his spine.
II
He wasted no time on excuses but almost ran to the cloakroom. His feet whispered along the crystalline floor, where Orion glittered hundreds of light-years beneath. “Mind-screen,” he snapped.
The slave was a pretty girl. Merseians took pleasure in buying humans for menial jobs. “I’ve only a few, sir,” she said. “His lordship told me to keep them for—”
“Me!” Flandry snatched the cap of wires, transistors, and power cells from her hesitant fingers. Only when it was on his head did he relax. Then he took out a fresh cigaret and steered through lilting music toward the bar. He needed a drink, badly.
Aycharaych of Chereion stood beneath high glass pillars. No one spoke to him. Mostly the humans were dancing while non-humans of various races listened to the music. A performer from Lulluan spread heaven-blue feathers on a small stage, but few watched that rare sight. Flandry elbowed past a Merseian who had just drained a two-liter tankard. “Scotch,” he said. “Straight, tall, and quick.”
Lady Diana approached. She seemed uncertain whether to be indignant or intrigued. “Now I know what they mean by cavalier treatment.” She pointed upward. “What is that thing?”
Flandry tossed off his drink. The whisky smoked down his throat, and he felt his nerves ease. “I’m told it’s my face,” he said.