Flandry slumped. “Very well,” he said in a dull tone. “I captured Temulak.”
“Ha!” Svantozik crouched all-fours on the dais. The fur stood up along his spine, the iron-colored eyes burned. “Where is he now?”
“I do not know. As a precaution, I had him moved elsewhere, and did not inquire the place.”
“Wise.” Svantozik relaxed. “What did you get from him?”
“Nothing. He did not crack.”
Svantozik stared at Flandry. “I doubt that,” he said. “Not that I scorn Temulak — a brave one — but you are an extraordinary specimen of a civilization older and more learned than mine. It would be strange if you had not—”
Flandry sat up straight. His laughter barked harsh. “Extraordinary?” he cried bitterly. “I suppose so … the way I allowed myself to be caught like a cub!”
“ ‘No ground is free of possible pits,’ ” murmured Svantozik. He brooded a while. Presently: “Why did the female betray you? She went to our headquarters, declared you were a Terran agent, and led our warriors to your meeting place. What had she to gain?”
“I don’t know,” groaned Flandry. “What difference does it make? She is wholly yours now, you know. The very fact she aided you once gives you the power to make her do it again — lest you denounce her to her own people.” Svantozik nodded, grinning. “What do her original motives matter?” The man sagged back and picked at the straw.
“I am interested,” said Svantozik. “Perhaps the same process may work again, on other humans.”
“No.” Flandry shook his head in a stunned way. “This was personal. I suppose she thought I had betrayed her first — Why am I telling you this?”
“I have been informed that you Terrans often have strong feelings about individuals of the opposite sex,” said Svantozik. “I was told it will occasionally drive you to desperate, meaningless acts.”
Flandry passed a tired hand across his brow. “Forget it,” he mumbled. “Just be kind to her. You can do that much, can you not?”
“As a matter of fact—” Svantozik broke off. He sat for a moment, staring at emptiness.
“Great unborn planets!” he whispered.
“What?” Flandry didn’t look up.
“No matter,” said Svantozik hasitly. “Ah, am I right in assuming there was a reciprocal affection on your part?”
“It is no concern of yours!” Flandry sat up and shouted it. “I will hear no more! Say what else you will, but keep your filthy snout out of my own life!”
“So,” breathed Svantozik. “Yes-s-s-s … Well, then, let us discuss other things.”
He hammered at Flandry a while, not with quite the ruthlessness the human had shown Temulak. Indeed, he revealed a kind of chivalry: there was respect, fellow feeling, even an acrid liking in him for this man whose soul he hunted. Once or twice Flandry managed to divert the conversation — they spoke briefly of alcoholic drinks and riding animals; they traded some improper jokes, similar in both cultures.
Nevertheless, Svantozik hunted. It was a rough few hours.
At last Flandry was taken away. He was too worn to notice very much, but the route did seem devious. He was finally pushed into a room, not unlike Svantozik’s office, save that it had human-type furniture and illumination. The door clashed behind him.
Kit stood waiting.
XIII
For a moment he thought she would scream. Then, very quickly, her eyes closed. She opened them again. They remained dry, as if all her tears had been spent. She took a step toward him.
“Oh, God, Kit,” he croaked.
Her arms closed about his neck. He held her to him. His own gaze flickered around the room, until it found a small human-made box with a few controls which he recognized. He nodded to himself, ever so faintly, and drew an uneven breath. But he was still uncertain.
“Dominic, darlin’—” Kit’s mouth sought his.
He stumbled to the bunk, sat down and covered his face. “Don’t,” he whispered. “I can’t take much more.”
The girl sat clown beside him. She laid her head on his shoulder. He felt how she trembled. But the words came in glorious anticlimax: “That debuggin’ unit is perfectly good, Dominic.”
He wanted to lean back and shout with sudden uproarious mirth. He wanted to kick his heels and thumb his nose and turn handsprings across the cell. But he held himself in, letting only a rip of laughter come from lips which he hid against her cheek.
He had more than half expected Svantozik to provide a bugscrambler. Only with the sure knowledge that any listening devices were being negated by electronic and sound-wave interference, would even a cadet of Intelligence relax and speak freely. He suspected, though, that a hidden lens was conveying a silent image. They could talk, but both of them must continue to pantomime.
“How’s it been, Kit?” he asked. “Rough?”
She nodded, not play-acting her misery at all. “But I haven’t had to give any names,” she gulped. “Not yet.”
“Let’s hope you don’t,” said Flandry.
He had told her in the hurricane cellar — how many centuries ago? … “This is picayune stuff. I’m not doing what any competent undercover agent couldn’t: what a score of Walton’s men will be trying as soon as they can be smuggled here. I’ve something crazier in mind. Quite likely it’ll kill us, but then again it might strike a blow worth whole fleets. Are you game, kid? It means the risk of death, or torture, or lifelong slavery on a foreign planet. What you’ll find worst, though, is the risk of having to sell out your own comrades, name them to the enemy, so he will keep confidence in you. Are you brave enough to sacrifice twenty lives for a world? I believe you are — but it’s as cruel a thing as I could ask of any living creature.”
“They brought me straight here,” said Kit, holding him. “I don’t think they know quite what to make o’ me. A few minutes ago, one o’ them came hotfootin’ here with the scrambler an’ orders for me to treat you … ” a slow flush went over her face, ” … kindly. To get information from you, if I could, by any means that seemed usable.”
Flandry waved a fist in melodramatic despair, while out of a contorted face his tone came levelly: “I expected something like this. I led Svantozik, the local snooper-in-chief, to think that gentle treatment from one of my own species, after a hard grilling from him, might break me down. Especially if you were the one in question. Svantozik isn’t stupid at all, but he’s dealing with an alien race, us, whose psychology he knows mainly from sketchy second-hand accounts. I’ve an advantage: the Ardazirho are new to me, but I’ve spent a lifetime dealing with all shapes and sizes of other species. Already I see what the Ardazirho have in common with several peoples whom I hornswoggled in the past.”
The girl bit her lip to hold it steady. She looked around the stone-walled room, and he knew she thought of kilometers of tunnel, ramparts and guns, wolfish hunters, and the desert beyond where men could not live. Her words fell thin and frightened: “What are we goin’ to do now, Dominic? You never told me what you planned.”
“Because I didn’t know,” he replied. “Once here, I’d have to play by ear. Fortunately, my confidence in my own ability to land on my feet approaches pure conceit, or would if I had any faults. We’re not doing badly, Kit. I’ve learned their principal language, and you’ve been smuggled into their ranks.”
“They don’t trust me yet.”
“No. I didn’t expect they would — very much … But let’s carry on our visual performance. I wouldn’t flip-flop over to the enemy side just because you’re here, Kit; but when I am badly shaken, I lose discretion and ordinary carefulness. Svantozik will accept that.”