Flandry nodded. For a second he felt disappointment. Hauksberg’s absence when he returned had seemed to provide a still better opportunity than Hauksberg’s frequent exhaustion in Ardaig. But excitement caught him. Never mind Persis. She was splendid recreation, but that was all.
“I might be tempted to think like his Lordship, Brechdan is fundamentally sincere,” he said. “The average Merseian is, I’m sure.”
“Sure you’re sure. And you’re right. Fat lot of difference that makes.”
“But anyhow, Starkad is too important. Haven’t you told that idi—Lord Hauksberg so?”
“I finally got tired of telling him,” Abrams said. “What have I got to argue from except a prejudice based on experiences he’s never shared?”
“I wonder why Brechdan agreed to receive a delegation in the first place.”
“Oh, easier to accept than refuse, I suppose. Or it might have suited his plans very well. He doesn’t want total war yet. I do believe he originally intended to send us packing in fairly short order. What hints I’ve gathered suggest that another issue has arisen—that he’s planning quite a different move, not really germane to Starkad—and figures to put a better face on it by acting mild toward us. God alone knows how long we’ll be kept here. Could be weeks more.”
Abrams leaned forward. “And meanwhile,” he continued, “anything could happen. I came with some hopes of pulling off a hell of a good stunt just before we left. And it did look hopeful at first, too. Could give us the truth about Starkad. Well, things have dragged on, configurations have changed, my opportunity may vanish. We’ve got to act soon, or our chance of acting at all will be mighty poor.”
This is it, Flandry thought, and a part of him jeered at the banality, while he waited with hardheld breath.
“I don’t want to tell you more than I’ve got to,” Abrams said. “Just this: I’ve learned where Brechdan’s ultrasecret file is. That wasn’t hard; everybody knows about it. But I think I can get an agent in there. The next and worst problem will be to get the information out, and not have the fact we’re doing so be known.
“I dare not wait till we all go home. That gives too much time for too many things to go wrong. Nor can I leave beforehand by myself. I’m too damn conspicuous. It’d look too much as if I’d finished whatever I set out to do. Hauksberg himself might forbid me to go, precisely because he suspected I was going to queer his pea-ea-eace mission. Or else … I’d be piloted out of the system by Merseians. Brechdan’s bully boys could arrange an unfortunate accident merely as a precaution. They could even spirit me off to a hypnoprobe room, and what happened to me there wouldn’t matter a hoot-let compared to what’d happen to our forces later. I’m not being melodramatic, son. Those are the unbuttered facts of life.”
Flandry sat still. “You want me to convey the data out, if you get them,” he said.
“Ah, you do know what an elephant is.”
“You must have a pretty efficient pipeline to Merseian HQ.”
“I’ve seen worse,” Abrams said rather smugly.
“Couldn’t have been developed in advance.” Flandry spoke word by word. Realization was freezing him. “Had it been, why should you yourself come here? Must be something you got hold of on Starkad, and hadn’t a chance to instruct anyone about that you trusted and who could be spared.”
“Let’s get down to business,” Abrams said fast.
“No. I want to finish this.”
“You?”
Flandry stared past Abrams like a blind man. “If the contact was that good,” he said, “I think you got a warning about the submarine attack on Ujanka. And you didn’t tell. There was no preparation. Except for a fluke, the city would have been destroyed.” He rose. “I saw Tigeries killed in the streets.”
“Sit down!”
“One mortar planted on a wharf would have gotten that boat.” Flandry started to walk away. His voice lifted. “Males and females and little cubs, blown apart, buried alive under rubble, and you did nothing!”
Abrams surged to his feet and came after him. “Hold on, there,” he barked.
Flandry whirled on him. “Why the obscenity should I?”
Abrams grabbed the boy’s wrists. Flandry tried to break free. Abrams held him where he was. Rage rode across the dark Chaldean face. “You listen to me,” Abrams said. “I did know. I knew the consequences of keeping silent. When you saved that town, I went down on my knees before God. I’d’ve done it before you if you could’ve understood. But suppose I had acted. Runei is no man’s fool. He’d have guessed I had a source, and there was exactly one possibility, and after he looked into that my pipeline would’ve been broken like a dry stick. And I was already developing it as a line into Brechdan’s own files. Into the truth about Starkad. How many lives might that save? Not only human. Tigery, Siravo, hell, Merseian! Use your brains, Dom. You must have a couple of cells clicking together between those ears. Sure, this is a filthy game. But it has one point of practicality which is also a point of honor. You don’t compromise your sources. You don’t!”
Flandry struggled for air. Abrams let him go. Flandry went back to his lounger, collapsed in it, and drank deep. Abrams stood waiting.
Flandry looked up. “I’m sorry, sir,” he got out. “Overwrought, I guess.”
“No excuses needed.” Abrams clapped his shoulder. “You had to learn sometime. Might as well be now. And you know, you give me a tinge of hope. I’d begun to wonder if anybody was left on our side who played the game for anything but its own foul sake. When you get some rank—Well, we’ll see.”
He sat down too. Silence lay between them for a while.
“I’m all right now, sir,” Flandry ventured.
“Good,” Abrams grunted. “You’ll need whatever all rightness you can muster. The best way I can see to get that information out soon involves a pretty dirty trick too. Also a humiliating one. I’d like to think you can hit on a better idea, but I’ve tried and failed.”
Flandry gulped. “What is it?”
Abrams approached the core gingerly. “The problem is this,” he said. “I do believe we can raid that file unbeknownst. Especially now while Brechdan is away, and the three others who I’ve found have access to that certain room. But even so, it’d look too funny if anyone left right after who didn’t have a plausible reason. You can have one.”
Flandry braced himself. “What?”
“Well … if Lord Hauksberg caught you in flagrante delicto with his toothsome traveling companion—”
That would have unbraced a far more sophisticated person. Flandry leaped from his seat. “Sir!”
“Down, boy. Don’t tell me the mice haven’t been playing while the cat’s elsewhere. You’ve been so crafty that I don’t think anybody else guesses, even in our gossipy little enclave. Which augurs well for your career in Intelligence. But son, I work close to you. When you report draggle-tailed on mornings after I noticed Lord Hauksberg was dead tired and took a hypnotic; when I can’t sleep and want to get some work done in the middle of the night and you aren’t in your room; when you and she keep swapping glances—Must I spell every word? No matter. I don’t condemn you. If I weren’t an old man with some eccentric ideas about my marriage, I’d be jealous.