Bourtai stepped back. The cloak fell open. She wore a translucent gown which revealed a figure somewhat stocky for Terran taste but nonetheless full and supple. He would have enjoyed watching that, except for the uncomprehending pain on her face.
“But, my lord Orluk,” she stammered, “I swear to you by the Mother of us both—”
You poor romantic, it cried in him, what do you think I am, a god? If you’re such a yokel you never heard of planting microphones in a guest room, Oleg Khan is not. Shut up before you kill us both!
Aloud, he got out a delighted guffaw. “Well, by Sirius, I do call this thoughtful. Furnishing me with a beautiful spy atop everything else! But honestly, darling, you can drop the pretense now. Let’s play some more adult games, eh, what?”
He reached out for her. She writhed free, ran across the room, dodged his pursuit and almost shouted through swift tears: “No, you fool, you blind brainless cackler, you will listen! You will listen if I must knock you to the floor and tie you up-and tell them, tell when you come home, ask them only to send a real spy and learn for themselves!”
Flandry cornered her. He grabbed both flailing wrists and tried to stop her mouth with a kiss. She brought her forehead hard against his nose. He staggered back, half blind with the pain, and heard her yelling: “It is the Merseians, great greenskinned monsters with long tails, the Merseians, I tell you, who come in secret from a secret landing field. I have seen them myself, walking these halls after dark, I have heard from a girl to whom a drunken orkhon babbled, I have crept like a rat in the walls and listened myself. They are called Merseians, the most terrible enemy your race and mine have yet known, and—”
Flandry sat down on a couch, wiped blood off his mustache, and said weakly: “Never mind that for now. How do we get out of here? Before the guards come to shoot us down, I mean.”
V
Bourtai fell silent, and he realized he had spoken in Anglic. He realized further that they wouldn’t be shot, except to prevent escape. They would be questioned, gruesomely.
He didn’t know if there were lenses as well as microphones in the walls. Nor did he know if the bugs passed information on to some watchful human, or only recorded data for study in the morning. He dared assume nothing but the former.
Springing to his feet, he reached Bourtai in one bound. She reacted with feline speed. A hand, edge on, cracked toward his larynx. He had already dropped his head, and took the blow on the hard top of his skull. His own hands gripped the borders of her cloak and crossed forearms at her throat. Before she could jab him in the solar plexus, he yanked her too close to him. She reached up thumbs, to scoop out his eyeballs. He rolled his head and was merely scratched on the nose. After the last buffet, that hurt. He yipped, but didn’t let go. A second later, she went limp in his strangle.
He whirled her around, got an arm lock, and let her sag against him. She stirred. So brief an oxygen starvation had brought no more than a moment’s unconsciousness. He buried his face in her dark flowing hair, as if he were a lover. It had a warm, somehow summery smell. He found an ear and breathed softly:
“You little gristlehead, did it ever occur to you that the Khan is suspicious of me? That there must be listeners? Now our forlorn chance is to get out of here. Steal a Betelgeusean spaceship, maybe. First, though, I must pretend I am arresting you, so they won’t come here with too much haste and alertness for us. Understand? Can you play the part?
She grew rigid. He felt her almost invisible nod. The hard young body leaning on him eased into a smoothness of controlled nerve and muscle. He had seldom known a woman this competent in a physical emergency. Unquestionably, Bourtai Ivanskaya had military training.
She was going to need it.
Aloud, Flandry huffed: “Well, I’ve certainly never heard anything more ridiculous! There aren’t any Merseians around here. I checked very carefully before setting out. Wouldn’t want to come across them, don’t you know, and spend maybe a year in some dreary Merseian jail while the pater negotiated my release. Eh, what? Really now, it’s perfect rot, every word.” He hemmed and hawed a bit. “I think I’d better turn you in, madam. Come along, now, no tricks!”
He marched her out the door, into a pillared corridor. One end opened on a window, twenty meters above a night-frozen fishpond. The other stretched into dusk, lit by infrequent bracketed lamps. Flandry hustled Bourtai down that side. Presently they came to a downward-sweeping staircase. A pair of sentries, in helmets, leather jackets, guns and knives, stood posted there. One of them aimed and barked: “Halt! What would you?”
“This girl, don’t you know,” panted Flandry. He nudged Bourtai, who gave some realistic squirmings. “Started to babble all sorts of wild nonsense. Who’s in charge here? She thought I’d help her against the Kha Khan. Imagine!”
“What?” A guardsman trod close.
“The Tebtengri will avenge me!” snarled Bourtai. “The Ice People will house in the ruin of this palace!”
Flandry thought she was overacting, but the guards both looked shocked. The nearer onesheathed his blaster. “I shall hold her, Orluk,” he said. “Boris, run for the commander.”
As he stepped close, Flandry let the girl go. With steel on his pate and stiff leather on his torso, the sentry wasn’t very vulnerable. Except-Flandry’s right hand rocketed upward. The heel of it struck the guard under the nose. He lurched backward, caromed off the balustrade, and flopped dead on the stairs. The other, half-turned to go, spun about on one booted heel. He snatched for his weapon. Bourtai put a leg behind his ankles and pushed. Down he went, Flandry pounced. They rolled over, clawing for a grip. The guard yelped. Flandry saw Bourtai over his opponent’s shoulder. She had taken the belt off the first warrior and circled about with the leather in her hands. Flandry let his enemy get on top. Bourtai put the belt around the man’s neck, a knee between his shoulder-blades, and heaved.
Flandry scrambled from below. “Get their blasters,” he gasped. “Here, give me one. Quick! We’ve made more racket than I hoped. Do you know the best way to escape? Lead on, then!”
Bourtai raced barefoot down the steps. Her goldcloth cloak and frail gown streamed behind her, insanely, unfitting for the occasion. Flandry came behind, one flight, two flights.
Boots clattered on marble. Rounding yet another spiral curve, Flandry met a squad of soldiers quick-stepping upward. The leader hailed him: “Do you have the evil woman, Orluk?”
So there had been a continuous listener. Of course, even surrendering Bourtai, Flandry could not save his own skin. Harmless fop or no, he had heard too much.
The squad’s eyes registered the girl’s blaster even as their chief spoke. Someone yelled. Bourtai fired into the thick of them. Ionic lightning crashed. Flandry dropped. A bolt sizzled where he had been. He fired, wide-beam, the energy too diluted to kill even at this range but scorching four men at once. As their screams lifted, he bounced back to his feet, overleaped the fallen front line, stiff-armed a warrior beyond, and hit the landing.
From here, a bannister curled grandly to the ground floor. Flandry whooped, seated himself, and slid. At the bottom was a sort of lobby, with glass doors opening on the garden. The moons and rings were so bright that no headlights shone from the half-dozen varyaks roaring toward this entrance. Mounted guardsmen, attracted by the noise of the fight-Flandry stared around. Arched windows flanked the doors, two meters up. He gestured to Bourtai, crouched beneath one and made a stirrup of his hands. She nodded, soared to the sill, broke glass with her gun butt, and fired into the troops. Flandry took shelter behind a column and blasted loose at the remnant of the infantry squad, stumbling down the stairs in pursuit. Their position hopelessly exposed to him, they retreated from sight.