He didn’t even stop to gibe at his own absent-mindedness. His heart thuttered. “Wait a minute, Chives,” he said. “We’ve got an airlock over there. Since the force-bubble necessarily reinforces its structure, it must still be intact; and its machinery can open the valves even against this outside pressure. Of course, we can’t go through ourselves. Our space armor would be squashed flat. But we can get at the mechanism of the lock. It also, by logical necessity, has to be part of the Terra-conditioned system. We can use the tools we have here to make a simple automatic cycle. First the outer valve opens. Then it shuts, the Jovian air is exhausted from the chamber and Terrestrial air replaces same. Then the valve opens again … and so on. Do you see?”
“No, sir,” said Chives. A deadly physical exhaustion filmed his yellow eyes. “My brain feels so thick … I regret—”
“A signal!” yelled Flandry. “We flush oxygen out into a hydrogen-cum-methane atmosphere. We supply an electric spark in the lock chamber to ignite the mixture. Whoosh! A flare! Feeble and blue enough — but not by Jovian standards. Any Ymirite anywhere within tens of kilometers is bound to see it as brilliant as we see a magnesium torch. And it’ll repeat. A steady cycle, every four or five minutes. If the Ymirites aren’t made of concrete, they’ll be curious enough to investigate … and when they find the wreck on this berg, they’ll guess our need and—”
His voice trailed off. Chives said dully. “Can we spare the oxygen, sir?”
“We’ll have to,” said Flandry. “We’ll sacrifice as much as we can stand, and then halt the cycle. If nothing has happened after several hours, we’ll expend half of what’s left in one last fireworks.” He took an ultimate pull on his cigaret, ground it out with great care, and fought back to his feet. “Come on, let’s get going. What have we to lose?”
The floor shook. It banged and crashed outside. A fog of free radicals drifted green past the window, and the red iceberg spun in Jupiter’s endless gale.
Flandry glanced at Chives. “You have one fault, laddy,” he said, forcing a smile to his lips. “You aren’t a beautiful woman.” And then, after a moment, sighing: “However, it’s just as well. Under the circumstances.”
VI
— And in that well-worn nick of time, which goes to prove that the gods, understandably, love me, help arrived. An Ymirite party spotted our flare. Having poked around, they went off, bringing back another force-bubble ship to which we transferred our nearly suffocated carcasses. No, Junior, I don’t know what the Ymirites were doing in the Red Spot area. It must be a dank cold place for them too. But I had guessed they would be sure to maintain some kind of monitors, scientific stations, or what have you around there, just as we monitor the weather-breeding regions of Terra.
Governor Thua didn’t bother to apologize. He didn’t even notice my valet’s indignant demand that the miscreant Horx be forthwith administered a red-ice shaft, except to say that future visitors would be given a different guide (how can they tell?) and that this business was none of his doing and he wouldn’t waste any Ymirite’s time with investigations or punishments or any further action at all. He pointed out the treaty provision, that he wasn’t bound to admit us, and that any visits would always be at the visitor’s own risk.
The fact that some Ymirites did rescue us proves that the conspiracy, if any, does not involve their whole race. But how highly placed the hostile individuals are in their government (if they have anything corresponding to government as we know it) — I haven’t the groggiest.
Above summary for convenience only. Transcript of all conversation, which was taped as per ungentlemanly orders, attached.
Yes, Junior, you may leave the room.
Flandry switched off the recorder. He could trust the confidential secretary, who would make a formal report out of his dictation, to clean it up. Though he wished she wouldn’t.
He leaned back, cocked feet on desk, trickled smoke through his nostrils, and looked out the clear wall of his office. Admiralty Center gleamed, slim faerie spires in soft colors, reaching for the bright springtime sky of Terra. You couldn’t mount guard across 400 light-years without millions of ships; and that meant millions of policy makers, scientists, engineers, strategists, tacticians, coordinators, clerks … and they had families, which needed food, clothing, houses, schools, amusements … so the heart of the Imperial Navy became a city in its own right. Damn company town, thought Flandry. And yet, when the bombs finally roared out of space, when the barbarians howled among smashed buildings and the smoke of burning books hid dead men in tattered bright uniforms — when the Long Night came, as it would, a century or a millennium hence, what difference? — something of beauty and gallantry would have departed the universe.
To hell with it. Let civilization hang together long enough for Dominic Flandry to taste a few more vintages, ride a few more horses, kiss a lot more girls and sing another ballad or two. That would suffice. At least, it was all he dared hope for.
The intercom chimed. “Admiral Fenross wants to see you immediately, sir.”
“Now he tells me,” grunted Flandry. “I wanted to see him yesterday, when I got back.”
“He was busy then, sir,” said the robot, as glibly as if it had a conscious mind. “His lordship the Earl of Sidrath is visiting Terra, and wished to be conducted through the operations center.”
Flandry rose, adjusted his peacock-blue tunic, admired the crease of his gold-frogged white trousers, and covered his sleek hair with a jewel-banded officer’s cap. “Of course,” he said, “Admiral Fenross couldn’t possibly delegate the tour to an aide.”
“The Earl of Sidrath is related to Grand Admiral the Duke of Asia,” the robot reminded him.
Flandry sang beneath his breath, “Brown is the color of my true love’s nose,” and went out the door. After a series of slide-ways and gravshafts, he reached Fenross’ office.
The admiral nodded his close-cropped head beyond the desk. “There you are.” His tone implied Flandry had stopped for a beer on the way. “Sit down. Your preliminary verbal report on the Jovian mission has been communicated to me. Is that really all you could find out?”
Flandry smiled. “You told me to get an indication, one way or another, of the Ymirite attitude, sir,” he purred. “That’s what I got: an indication, one way or another.”
Fenross gnawed his lip. “All right, all right. I should have known, I guess. Your forte never was working with an organization, and we’re going to need a special project, a very large project, to learn the truth about Ymir.”
Flandry sat up straight. “Don’t,” he said sharply.
“What?”
“Don’t waste men that way. Sheer arithmetic will defeat them. Jupiter alone has the area of a hundred Terras. The population must be more or less proportional. How are our men going to percolate around, confined to the two or three spaceships that Thua has available for them? Assuming Thua doesn’t simply refuse to admit any further oxygen-breathing nuisances. How are they going to question, bribe, eavesdrop, get any single piece of information? It’s a truism that the typical Intelligence job consists of gathering a million unimportant little facts and fitting them together into one big fact. We’ve few enough agents as is, spread ghastly thin. Don’t tie them up in an impossible job. Let them keep working on Merseia, where they’ve a chance of accomplishing something!”