Here and there Flandry saw a warship sitting insolently in the open, a missile emplacement, a detector station, a lookout tower black and lean against the blinding sky. Outer walls twisted through gullies and over naked ridges; Ardazirho sentries paced them, untroubled by dry cruel heat, blue-white hell-glare, pouring ultraviolet radiation. But mostly, the fortress went inside the hills, long vaulted tunnels where boots clashed and voices echoed from room to den-like room. Construction had followed standard dig-in methods: prodigal use of atomic energy to fuse the living rock into desired patterns, then swift robotic installation of the necessary mechanisms. But the layout was rougher, more tortuous, less private, than man or Merseian would have liked. The ancestral Ardazirho had laired in caves and hunted in packs.
Flandry was hustled into a small room equipped as a laboratory. A pair of warriors clamped him in place. A grizzled technician began to prepare instruments.
Often, in the next day or two, Flandry screamed. He couldn’t help it. Electronic learning should not go that fast. But finally, sick and shaking, he could growl the Urdahu language. Indeed, he thought, the Ardazirho had been thoroughly briefed. They understood the human nervous system so well that they could stamp a new linguistic pattern on it in mere hours, and not drive the owner insane.
Not quite.
Flandry was led down endless booming halls. Their brilliant bluish fluorescence hurt his eyes; he must needs squint. Even so, he watched what passed. It might be a truckload of ammunition, driven at crazy speed by a warrior who yelped curses at foot traffic. Or it might be a roomful of naked red-furred shapes: sprawled in snarling, quarrelsome fellowship; gambling with tetrahedral dice for stakes up to a year’s slavery; watching a wrestling match which employed teeth and nails; testing nerve by standing up in turn against a wall while the rest threw axes. Or it might be a sort of chapel, where a single scarred fighter wallowed in pungent leaves before a great burning wheel. Or it might be a mess hall and a troop lying on fur rugs, bolting raw meat and howling in chorus with one who danced on a monstrous drumhead.
The man came at last to an office. This was also an artificial cave, thick straw on the floor, gloom in the corners, a thin stream of water running down a groove in one wall. A big Ardazirho lay prone on a hairy dais, lifted on both elbows to a slanting desktop. He wore only a skirt of leather strips, a crooked knife and a very modern blaster. But the telescreen and intercom before him were also new, and Flandry’s guards touched their black noses in his presence.
“Go,” he said in the Urdahu. “Wait outside.” The guards obeyed. He nodded at Flandry. “Be seated, if you wish.”
The human lowered himself. He was still weak from what he had undergone, filthy, ill-fed, and ragged. Automatically he smoothed back his hair, and thanked human laziness for its invention of long-lasting antibeard enzyme. He needed such morale factors.
His aching muscles grew tight. Things were in motion again. “I am Svantozik of the Janneer Ya,” said the rough voice. “I am told that you are Captain Dominic Flandry of Terran Naval Intelligence. You may consider my status approximately the same.”
“As one colleague to another,” husked Flandry, “will you give me a drink?”
“By all means.” Svantozik gestured to the artesian stream. Flandry threw him a reproachful look, but needed other things too badly to elaborate. “It would be a kindly deed, and one meriting my gratitude, if you provided me at once with dark lenses and cigarets.” The last word was perforce Anglic. He managed a grin. “Later I will tell you what further courtesies ought to be customary.”
Svantozik barked laughter. “I expected your eyes would suffer,” he said. “Here.” He reached in the desk and tossed over a pair of green polarite goggles, doubtless taken off a Vixenite casualty. Flandry put them on and whistled relief. “Tobacco is forbidden,” added Svantozik. “Only a species with half-dead scent organs could endure it.”
“Oh, well. There was no harm in asking.” Flandry hugged his knees and leaned back against the cave wall.
“None. Now, I wish to congratulate you on your daring exploits.” Svantozik’s smile looked alarming enough, but it seemed friendly. “We searched for your vessel, but it must have escaped the planet.”
“Thanks,” said Flandry, quite sincerely. “I was afraid you would have gotten there in time to blast it.” He cocked his head. “In return … see here, my friend [literally: croucher-in-my-blind], when dealing with my species, it is usually better to discourage them. You should have claimed you had caught my boat before it could escape, manufacturing false evidence if necessary to convince me. That would make me much more liable to yield my will to yours.”
“Oh, indeed?” Svantozik pricked up his ears. “Now among the Black People, the effect would be just opposite. Good news tends to relax us, make us grateful and amenable to its bearer. Bad tidings raise the quotient of defiance.”
“Well, of course it is not that simple,” said Flandry. “In breaking down the resistance of a man, the commonest technique is to chivvy him for a protracted time, and then halt the process, speak kindly to him — preferably, get someone else to do that.”
“Ah.” Svantozik drooped lids over his cold eyes. “Are you not being unwise in telling me this — if it is true?”
“It is textbook truth,” said Flandry, “as I am sure whatever race has instructed you in the facts about Terra’s Empire will confirm. I am revealing no secret. But as you must be aware, textbooks have little value in practical matters. There is always the subtlety of the individual, which eludes anything except direct intuition based on wide, intimate experience. And you, being nonhuman, cannot ever have such an experience of men.”
“True.” The long head nodded. “In fact, I remember now reading somewhat of the human trait you mention … but there was so much else to learn, prior to the Great Hunt we are now on, that it had slipped my memory. So you tantalize me with a fact I could use — if I were on your side!” A sudden deep chuckle cracked in the ruffed throat. “I like you, Captain, the Sky Cave eat me if I do not.”
Flandry smiled back. “We could have fun. But what are your intentions toward me now?”
“To learn what I can. For example, whether or not you were concerned in the murder of four warriors in Garth and the abduction of a fifth, not long ago. The informant who led us to you has used hysterics — real or simulated — to escape detailed questioning so far. Since the captured Ardazirho was a Clan-master, and therefore possessed of valuable information, I suspect you had a hand in this.”
“I swear upon the Golden Ass of Apuleius I did not.”
“What is that?”
“One of our most revered books.”
“ ‘The Powers only hunt at night,’ ” quoted Svantozik. “In other words, oaths are cheap. I personally do not wish to hurt you unduly, being skeptical of the value of torture anyhow. And I know that officers like you are immunized to the so-called truth sera. Therefore, reconditioning would be necessary: a long, tedious process, the answers stale when finally you wanted to give them, and you of little further value to us or yourself.” He shrugged. “But I am going back to Ardazir before long, to report and wait reassignment. I know who will succeed me here: an officer quite anxious to practice some of the techniques which we have been told are effective on Terrans. I recommend you cooperate with me instead.”
This must be one of their crack field operatives, thought Flandry, growing cold. He did the basic Intelligence work on Vixen. Now, with Vixen in hand, he’ll be sent to do the same job when the next Terran planet is attacked. Which will be soon!