Silence lay thick while the phone hunted through its various scanner outlets. The screen flickered, the ambassador looked forth. “Hauksberg! What the devil?”
“Just returned,” said the viscount. “We heard of an attempt to rifle Premier Brechdan’s files. May have been a successful attempt, too; and the agent escaped. The premier accused me of havin’ a finger in it. Obvious thought. Somebody wants to sabotage my mission.”
“I—” Oliveira collected himself. “Not necessarily. Terra isn’t the only rival Merseia has.”
“So I pointed out. Prepare to do likewise at length when you’re notified officially. But we’ve got to show good faith. I’ve deputed the Merseians to arrest Commander Abrams. He’ll be fetched back here. Place him under guard.”
“Lord Hauksberg! He’s an Imperial officer, and accredited to the diplomatic corps.”
“He’ll be detained by Terrans. By virtue of my commission from his Majesty, I’m assumin’ command. No back talk if you don’t want to be relieved of your position.”
Oliveira whitened but bowed. “Very good, my lord. I must ask for this in properly recorded form.”
“You’ll have it when I get the chance. Next, this young fella Flandry, Abrams’ assistant. Happens I’ve got him on deck. Think I’ll quiz him a while myself. But have a couple of men march him to detention when I give the word. Meanwhile, alert your staff, start preparin’ plans, explanations, and disclaimers, and stand by for a visit from Brechdan’s foreign office.”
Hauksberg cut the circuit. “Enough,” he said. “C’mon out and start talkin’, you.”
Flandry went. Nightmare hammered at him. In the back of his head ran the thought: Abrams was right. You don’t really want drama in these things.
What’ll happen to him?
To me? To Persis? To Terra?
“Sit down.” Hauksberg pointed his gun at a lounger and swung the barrel back at once. With his free hand he pulled a flat case from his tunic pocket. He appeared a little relaxed; had he begun to enjoy the tableau?
Flandry lowered himself. Psychological disadvantage, looking upward. Yes, we underestimated his Lordship badly. Persis stood in the archway, red-eyed, hugging herself and gulping.
Hauksberg flipped open the case—an unruly part of Flandry noticed how the chased silver shone beneath the fluoro-ceiling—and stuck a cheroot between his teeth. “What’s your role in this performance?” he asked.
“Nothing, my lord,” Flandry stammered. “I don’t know—I mean, if—if I were concerned, would I have been here tonight?”
“Might.” Hauksberg returned the case and extracted a lighter. His glance flickered to Persis. “What about you, m’ love?”
“I don’t know anything,” she whispered. “And neither does he. I swear it.”
“Inclined to b’lieve you.” The lighter scritted and flared. “In this case, though, you’ve been rather cynic’lly used.”
“He wouldn’t!”
“Hm.” Hauksberg dropped the lighter on a table and blew smoke from his nostrils. “Could be you both were duped. We’ll find that out when Abrams is probed.”
“You can’t!” Flandry shouted. “He’s an officer!”
“They certainly can on Terra, my boy. I’d order it done this very hour, and risk the repercussions, if we had the equipment. ’Course, the Merseians do. If necess’ry, I’ll risk a much bigger blowback and turn him over to them. My mission’s too important for legal pettifoggin'. You might save the lot of us a deal of grief by tellin’ all, Ensign. If your testimony goes to prove we Terrans are not involved—d’ you see?”
Give him a story, any story, whatever gets you away.
Flandry’s brain was frozen. “How could we have arranged the job?” he fumbled. “You saw what kind of surveillance we’ve been under.”
“Ever hear about agents provocateurs? I never believed Abrams came along for a ride.” Hauksberg switched the phone to Record. “Begin at the beginnin”, continue to the end, and stop. Why’d Abrams co-opt you in the first place?”
“Well, I—that is, he needed an aide.” What actually did happen? Everything was so gradual. Step by step. I never really did decide to go into Intelligence. But somehow, here I am.
Persis squared her shoulders. “Dominic had proven himself on Starkad,” she said wretchedly. “Fighting for the Empire.”
“Fine, sonorous phrase.” Hauksberg tapped the ash from his cheroot. “Are you really infatuated with this lout? No matter. P’rhaps you can see anyhow that I’m workin’ for the Empire myself. Work sounds less romantic than fight, but’s a bit more useful in the long haul, eh? Go on, Flandry. What’d Abrams tell you he meant to accomplish?”
“He … he hoped to learn things. He never denied that. But spying, no. He’s not so stupid, my lord.” He’s simply been outwitted. “I ask you, how could he arrange trouble?”
“Leave the questions to me. When’d you first get together with Persis, and why?”
“We—I—” Seeing the anguish upon her, Flandry knew in full what it meant to make an implement of a sentient being. “My fault. Don’t listen to her. On the way—”
The door opened. There was no more warning than when Hauksberg had entered. But the thing which glided through, surely the lock was not keyed to that!
Persis shrieked. Hauksberg sprang back with an oath. The thing, seared and twisted metal, blood starting afresh from the cauterized fragment of an arm, skin drawn tight and gray across bones in what was left of a face, rattled to the floor.
“Ensign Flandry,” it called. The voice had volume yet, but no control, wavering across the scale and wholly without tone. Light came and went in the scanners which were eyes.
Flandry’s jaws locked. Abrams’ agent? Abrams’ hope, wrecked and dying at his feet?
“Go on,” Hauksberg breathed. The blaster crouched in his fist. “Talk to him.”
Flandry shook his head till the sweat-drenched hair flew.
“Talk, I say,” Hauksberg commanded. “Or I’ll kill you and most surely give Abrams to the Merseians.”
The creature which lay and bled before the now shut main door did not seem to notice. “Ensign Flandry. Which one is you? Hurry. Meshuggah. He told me to say meshuggah.”
Flandry moved without thinking, from his lounger, down on his knees in the blood. “I’m here,” he whispered.
“Listen.” The head rolled, the eyes flickered more and more dimly, a servomotor rattled dry bearings inside the broken shell. “Memorize. In the Starkad file, these numbers.”
As they coughed forth, one after the next in the duodecimals of Eriau, Flandry’s training reacted. He need not understand, and did not; he asked for no repetitions; each phoneme was burned into his brain.
“Is that everything?” he asked with someone else’s throat.
“Aye. The whole.” A hand of metal tendrils groped until he clasped it. “Will you remember my name? I was Dwyr of Tanis, once called the Merry. They made me into this. I was planted in your airboat. Commander Abrams sent me. That is why he left this place, to release me unobserved. But an alarm order was on the Starkad reel. I was ruined in escaping. I would have come sooner to you but I kept fainting. You must phone for the boat and … escape, I think. Remember Dwyr.”
“We will always remember.”
“Good. Now let me die. If you open the main plate you can turn oft my heart.” The words wobbled insanely, but they were clear enough. “I cannot hold Sivilla long in my brain. It is poisoned and oxygen starved. The cells are going out, one by one. Turn off my heart.”