“Khraich. Yes. Correct.” Brechdan forced himelf to look at Dwyr as he would at a fully alive being. “You can be put into other bodies, can you not?”
“Yes, Hand,” came from the blank visage. “Vehicles, weapons, detectors, machine tools, anything designed to receive my organic component and my essential prostheses. I do not take long to familiarize myself with their use. Under his Supremacy, I stand at your orders.”.
“You will have work.” Brechdan said “In truth you will. I know not what as yet. You may even be asked to burgle the envoy’s ship in orbit. For a beginning, however, I think we must plan a program again our friend Abrams. He will expect the usual devices; you may give him a surprise. If you do, you shall not go unhonored.”
Dwyr the Hook waited to hear further.
Brechdan could not forebear taking a minute for plain fleshly comradeship. “How were you hurt?” he asked.
“In the conquest of Janair, Hand. A nuclear blast. The field hospital kept me alive and sent me to base for regeneration. But the surgeons there found that the radiation had too much deranged my cellular chemistry. At that point I requested death. They explained that techniques newly learned from Gorrazan gave hope of an alternative, which might make my service quite precious. They were correct.”
Brechdan was momentarily startled. This didn’t sound right—Well, he was no biomedic.
His spirits darkened. Why pretend pity? You can’t be friends with the dead. And Dwyr was dead, in bone, sinew, glands, gonads, guts, everything but a brain which had nothing left except the single-mindedness of a machine. So, use him. That was what machines were for.
Brechdan took a turn around the room, hands behind back, tail unrestful, scar throbbing. “Good,” he said. “Let us discuss procedure.”
11
“Oh, no,” Abrams had said. “I thank most humbly the government of his Supremacy for this generous offer, but would not dream of causing such needless trouble and expense. True, the Embassy cannot spare me an airboat. However, the ship we came in, Dronning Margrete, has a number of auxiliaries now idle. I can use one of them.”
“The Commander’s courtesy is appreciated,” bowed the official at the other end of the vidiphone line. “Regrettably, though, law permits no one not of Merseian race to operate within the Korychan System a vessel possessing hyperdrive capabilities. The Commander will remember that a Merseian pilot and engineer boarded his Lordship’s vessel for the last sublight leg of the journey here. Is my information correct that the auxiliaries of his Lordship’s so impressive vessel possess hyperdrives in addition to gravities?”
“They do, distinguished colleague. But the two largest carry an airboat apiece as their own auxiliaries. I am sure Lord Hauksberg won’t mind lending me one of those for my personal transportation. There is no reason to bother your department.”
“But there is!” The Merseian threw up his hands in quite a manlike gesture of horror. “The Commander, no less than his Lordship, is a guest of his Supremacy. We cannot disgrace his Supremacy by failing to show what hospitality lies within our power. A vessel will arrive tomorrow for the Commander’s personal use. The delay is merely so that it may be furnished comfortably for Terrans and the controls modified to a Terran pattern. The boat can sleep six, and we will stock its galley with whatever is desired and available here. It has full aerial capability, has been checked out for orbital use, and could no doubt reach the outermost moon at need. I beg for the Commander’s acceptance.”
“Distinguished colleague, I in turn beg that you, under his Supremacy, accept my sincerest thanks,” Abrams beamed. The beam turned into a guffaw as soon as he had cut the circuit. Of course the Merseians weren’t going to let him travel around unescorted—not unless they could bug his transportation. And of course they would expect him to look for eavesdropping gimmicks and find any of the usual sorts. Therefore he really needn’t conduct that tedious search.
Nonetheless, he did. Negligence would have been out of character. To those who delivered his beautiful new flier he explained that he set technicians swarming through her to make certain that everything was understood about her operation; different cultures, different engineering, don’t y’ know. The routine disclaimer was met by the routine pretense of believing it. The airboat carried no spy gadgets apart from the one he had been hoping for. He found this by the simple expedient of waiting till he was alone aboard and then asking. The method of its concealment filled him with admiration.
But thereafter he ran into a stone wall—or, rather, a pot of glue. Days came and went, the long thirty-seven-hour days of Merseia. He lost one after another by being summoned to the chamber in Castle Afon where Hauksberg and staff conferred with Brechdan’s puppets. Usually the summons was at the request of a Merseian, who wanted elucidation of some utterly trivial question about Starkad. Having explained, Abrams couldn’t leave. Protocol forbade. He must sit there while talk droned on, inquiries, harangues, haggles over points which a child could see were unessential—oh, yes, these greenskins had a fine art of making negotiations interminable.
Abrams said as much to Hauksberg, once when they were back at the Embassy. “I know,” the viscount snapped. He was turning gaunt and hollow-eyed. “They’re so suspicious of us. Well, we’re partly to blame for that, eh? Got to show good faith. While we talk, we don’t fight.”
“They fight on Starkad,” Abrams grumbled around his cigar. “Terra won’t wait on Brechdan’s comma-counting forever.”
“I’ll dispatch a courier presently, to report and explain. We are gettin’ somewhere, don’t forget. They’re definitely int’rested in establishin’ a system for continuous medium-level conference between the governments.”
“Yah. A great big gorgeous idea which’ll give political leverage to our accommodationists at home for as many years as Brechdan feels like carrying on discussions about it. I thought we came here to settle the Starkad issue.”
“I thought I was the head of this mission,” Hauksberg retorted. “That’ll do, Commander.” He yawned and stretched, stiffly. “One more drink and ho for bed. Lord Emp’ror, but I’m tired!”
On days when he was not immobilized, Abrams ground through his library research and his interviews. The Merseians were most courteous and helpful. They flooded him with books and periodicals. Officers and officials would talk to him for hours on end. That was the trouble. Aside from whatever feel he might be getting for the basic setup, he learned precisely nothing of value.
Which was a kind of indicator too, he admitted. The lack of hard information about early Merseian journeys to the Saxo region might be due to sloppiness about record keeping as Brechdan had said. But a check of other planets showed that they were, as a rule, better documented. Starkad appeared to have some secret importance. So what else is new?
At first Abrams had Flandry to help out. Then an invitation arrived. In the cause of better understanding between races, as well as hospitality, would Ensign Flandry like to tour the planet in company with some young Merseians whose rank corresponded more or less to his?
“Would you?” Abrams asked.
“Why—” Flandry straightened at his desk. “Hell, yes. Right now I feel as if every library in the universe should be bombed. But you need me here … I suppose.”
“I do. This is a baldpated ruse to cripple me still worse. However, you can go.”
“You mean that?” Flandry gasped.
“Sure. We’re stalled here. You just might discover something.”
“Thank you, sir!” Flandry rocketed out of his chair.