The trouble was, he alone had been able to speak Urdahu. There were a few hundred Ardazirho prisoners, taken off disabled craft by boarding parties. But the officers had destroyed all navigational clues and died, with the ghastly gallantry of preconditioning. None of the enlisted survivors knew Anglic, or cooperated with the Terran linguists. Flandry had passed on his command of their prime tongue, electronically; but not wishing to risk his sanity again, he had done it at the standard easy pace. The rest of each day had been spent interrogating — a certain percentage of prisoners were vulnerable to it in their own language. Now, two other humans possessed Urdahu: enough of a seedbed. But until the first spies sent to Ardazir itself got back, Flandry had been left on the grilling job. Sensible, but exhausting and deadly dull.
He hopped eagerly into a grav scooter and rode from the Intelligence ship to the dreadnaught. It was Nova class; its hull curved over him, monstrous as a mountain, guns raking the Milky Way. Otherwise he saw only stars, the distant sun Cerulia, the black nebula. Hard to believe that hundreds of ships, with the unchained atom in their magazines, prowled for a million kilometers around.
He entered the No. 7 lock and strode quickly toward the flag office. A scarlet cloak billowed behind him; his tunic was peacock blue, his trousers like snow, tucked into half-boots of authentic Cordovan leather. The angle of his cap was an outrage to all official dignity. He felt like a boy released from school.
“Dominic!”
Flandry stopped. “Kit!” he whooped.
She ran clown the corridor to meet him, a small lonely figure in brief Terran dress. Her hair was still a gold helmet, but he noted she was thinner. He put hands on her shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “The better to see you with,” he laughed. And then, soberly: “Tough?”
“Lonesome,” she said. “Empty. Nothin’ to do but worry.” She pulled away from him. “No, darn it, I hate people who feel sorry for themselves. I’m all right, Dominic.” She looked down at the deck and knuckled one eye.
“Come on!” he said.
“Hm? Dominic, where are you goin’? I can’t — I mean—”
Flandry slapped her in the most suitable place and hustled her along the hall. “You’re going to sit in on this! It’ll give you something to hope for. March!”
The guard outside Walton’s door was shocked. “Sir, my orders were to admit only you.”
“One side, junior.” Flandry picked up the marine by the gun belt and set him down a meter away. “The young lady is my portable expert on hypersquidgeronics. Also, she’s pretty.” He closed the door in the man’s face.
Admiral Walton started behind his desk. “What’s this, Captain?”
“I thought she could pour beer for us,” burbled Flandry.
“I don’t—” began Kit helplessly. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Sit down.” Flandry pushed her into a corner chair. “After all, sir, we might need first-hand information about Vixen.”
His eyes clashed with Walton’s. “I think she’s earned a ringside seat,” he added.
The admiral sat unmoving a moment. Then his mouth crinkled. “You’re incorrigible,” he said. “And spare me that stock answer, ‘No, I’m Flandry.’ Very well, Miss Kittredge. You understand this is under top security. Captain Flandry, you know Commander Sugimoto.”
Flandry shook hands with the other Terran, who had been in charge of the first sneak expedition to Ardazir. They sat down. Flandry started a cigaret. “D’you find the place all right?” he asked.
“No trouble,” said Sugimoto. “Once you’d given me the correlation between their astronomical tables and ours, and explained the number system, it was elementary. Their star’s not in our own catalogues, because it’s on the other side of that dark nebula and there’s never been any exploration that way. So you’ve saved us maybe a year of search. Incidentally, when the war’s over the scientists will be interested in the nebula. Seen from the other side, it’s faintly luminous: a proto-sun. No one ever suspected that Population One got that young right in Sol’s own galactic neighborhood! Must be a freak, though.”
Flandry stiffened. “What’s the matter?” snapped Walton.
“Nothing, sir. Or maybe something. I don’t know. Go on, Commander.”
“No need to repeat in detail,” said Walton. “You’ll see the full report. Your overall picture of Ardazirho conditions, gained from your interrogations, is accurate. The sun is an A4 dwarf — actually no more than a dozen parsecs from here. The planet is terrestroid, biggish, rather dry, quite mountainous, three satellites. From all indications — you know the techniques, sneak landings, long-range telescopic spying, hidden cameras, random samples — the Urdahu hegemony is recent and none too stable.”
“One of our xenologists spotted what he swore was a typical rebellion,” said Sugimoto. “To me, his films are merely a lot of red hairy creatures in one kind of clothes, firing with gunpowder weapons at a modern-looking fortress where they wear different clothes. The sound track won’t mean a thing till your boys translate for us. But the xenologist says there are enough other signs to prove it’s the uprising of a backward tribe against more civilized conquerors.”
“A chance, then, to play them off against each other,” nodded Flandry. “Of course, before we can hope to do that, Intelligence must first gather a lot more information. Advertisement.”
“Have you anything to add, Captain?” asked Walton. “Anything you learned since your last progress report?”
“No, sir,” said Flandry. “It all hangs together pretty well. Except, naturally, the main question. The Urdahu couldn’t have invented all the modern paraphernalia that gave them control of Ardazir. Not that fast. They were still in the early nuclear age, two decades ago. Somebody supplied them, taught them, and sent them out a-conquering. Who?”
“Ymir,” said Walton flatly. “Our problem is, are the Ymirites working independently, or as allies of Merseia?”
“Or at all?” murmured Flandry.
“Hell and thunder! The Ardazirho ships and heavy equipment have Ymirite lines. The governor of Ogre ties up half our strength simply by refusing to speak. A Jovian colonist tried to murder you when you were on an official mission, didn’t he?”
“The ships could be made that way on purpose, to mislead us,” said Flandry. “You know the Ymirites are not a courteous race: even if they were, what difference would it make, since we can’t investigate them in detail? As for my little brush with Horx—”
He stopped. “Commander,” he said slowly, “I’ve learned there are Jovoid planets in the system of Ardazir. Is any of them colonized?”
“Not as far as I could tell,” said Sugimoto. “Of course, with that hot sun … I mean, we wouldn’t colonize Ardazir, so Ymir—”
“The sun doesn’t make a lot of difference when atmosphere gets that thick,” said Flandry. “My own quizzing led me to believe there are no Ymirite colonies anywhere in the region overrun by Ardazir. Don’t you think, if they had interests there at all, they’d live there?”
“Not necessarily.” Walton’s fist struck the desk. “Everything’s ‘not necessarily,’ ” he growled, like a baited lion. “We’re righting in a fog. If we made an all-out attack anywhere, we’d expose ourselves to possible Ymirite action. This fleet is stronger than the Ardazirho force around Vixen — but weaker than the entire fleet of the whole Ardazirho realm — yet if we pulled in reinforcements from Syrax, Merseia would gobble up the Cluster! But we can’t hang around here forever, either, waiting for somebody’s next move!”