“Where are we going?” he asked.
“To an interview. The governing board of Biocontrol is most anxious to meet you, Captain.” Warouw lifted one eyebrow. It gave his smooth oval face & flicker of sardonicism. “You are not weary, I trust? What with the short day and night here, our people have gotten into the habit of taking several naps throughout the rotation period, rather than one long rest. Perhaps you feel ready for bed?”
Flandry tapped a cigarette on one thumbnail. “Would it do me much good to say yes?”
Warouw smiled. The aircar glided down to a landing terrace, high on one of the biggest buildings-a structure important enough to have been erected on a piece of solid land, rather than on the piles driven into mud which upheld most of the city.
As Flandry stepped out, the Guards closed in around him. “Call off the Happiness Boys, will you?” he snapped. “I want a quiet smoke.” Warouw jerked his head. The silent men withdrew, but not very far. Flandry walked across the terrace to its rail.
Clouds banked high on the eastern horizon. Lightning flickered in their depths. Overhead, the sky was clear, though a dim violet haze wavered among unearthly star-patterns-fluorescence in the upper atmosphere, due to the hidden but brilliant sun. Flandry identified the red spark of Betelgeuse, and yellow Spica, with a certain wistfulness. God knew if he’d ever drink beer again on any planet of either. He had stumbled into something unmerciful.
This building must be a hundred meters square. It rose in many tiers, pagoda fashion, the curved roofs ending in elephant heads whose tusks were lamps. The rail beneath Flandry’s hand was sculptured scaly. The dome which topped the whole enormous edifice was created with an arrogant image: the upraised foot of some bird of prey, talons grasping at heaven. The walls were gilt, dazzling even at night. From this terrace it was a fifty-meter drop to the oily waters of a major canal. On the other side rose a line of palaces. They were airy, colonnaded structures, their roofs leaping gaily upward, their walls painted with multi-armed figures at play. Lights glowed from several; Flandry heard twanging minor-key music.
Even here, in the city’s heart, he thought he could smell the surrounding jungle.
“If you please.” Warouw bowed at him.
Flandry took a final drag on his cigarette and followed the other man. They went through an archway shaped like the gaping mouth of a monster and down a long red hall beyond. Several doors stood open to offices, where kilted men sat tailorwise on cushions and worked at low desks. Flandry read a few legends: Interisland Water Traffic Bureau, Syncretic Arbitration Board, Seismic Energy Commission-yes, this was the seat of government. Then he was in an elevator, purring downward. The corridor into which he was finally guided stretched black between whitely fluorescing pillars.
At its end, a doorway opened on a great blue room. It was almost hemispherical, with an outsize window overlooking the night of Kompong Timur. To right and left stood banks of machinery: microfiles, recorders, computers, communicators. In the center was a table, black wood inlaid with native ivory. Behind it sat the overlords of Unan Besar.
Flandry stepped closer, studying them from the camouflage of a nonchalant grin. Cross-legged on a padded bench, all twenty had shaven heads and white robes like Warouw, the same tattooed mark on their brows. It was a gold circle with a cross beneath and an arrow slanting upward. The breast insignia varied-a cogwheel, a triode circuit diagram, an integral dx, conventionalized waves and gram sheafs and thunderbolts-the heraldry of a government which at least nominally emphasized technology.
Mostly, these men were older than Nias Warouw, and not in such good physical shape. The one who sat in the middle must be the grand panjandrum, Flandry thought: a petulant fat face, and the vulture-claw sign of mastery on his robe.
Warouw had been purringly urbane, but there was no mistaking the hostility of these others. Here and there a cheek gleamed with sweat, eyes narrowed, fingers drummed the tabletop. Flandry made the muscles around his shoulderblades relax. It was no easy job, since the knife-wielding Strength Through Joy squad stood immediately behind him.
The silence stretched.
Someone had to break it. “Boo,” said Flandry.
The man at the center stirred. “What?”
“A formula of greeting, your prominence,” bowed Flandry.
“Address me as Tuan Solu Bandang.” The fat man switched eyes toward Warouw. “Is this the, ah, the Terran agent?”
“No,” snorted Flandry, “I’m a cigar salesman.” But he didn’t snort it very loudly, or in Pulaoic.
“Yes, Tuan.” Warouw inclined his head briefly above folded hands.
They continued to stare. Flandry beamed and pirouetted for them. He was worth looking at, he assured himself smugly, being of athletic build (thanks to calisthenics, which he loathed but forced himself to keep up) and high-boned, straight-nosed, aristocratic features (thanks to one of Terra’s most fashionable biosculptors). His eyes were gray, his brown hair cut close about the ears in Imperial style but sleek on top.
Bandang pointed uneasily. “Take that, ah, gun from him,” he ordered.
“Please, Tuan,” said Flandry. “It was bequeathed me by my dear old grandmother. It still smells of lavender. If anyone demanded it from me, my heart would be so broken I’d blow his guts out.”
Someone else turned purple and said shrilly. “You foreigner, do you realize where you are?”
“Let him keep it if he insists, Tuan,” said Warouw indifferently. He met Flandry’s gaze with the faintest of smiles and added: “We should not disfigure this reunion moment with quarrels.”
A sigh went down the long table. Bandang pointed to a cushion on the floor. “Sit.”
“No, thank you.” Flandry studied them.
Warouw seemed the most intelligent and formidable of the lot, but after their initial surprise, they had all settled back into a disquieting habitual scornfulness. Surely the only firearm in the whole room didn’t count for that little!
“As you wish.” Bandang leaned forward, assuming unctuousness. “See here, ah, Captain-you’ll understand, I trust, how… how… delicate? Yes, how delicate a matter this is. I’m, ah, sure your discretion-” His voice trailed off in a smirk.
“If I’m causing any trouble, Tuan, I apologize,” said Flandry. “I’ll be glad to depart at once.” And how!
“Ah… no. No, I fear that isn’t er, practicable. Not for the present. My implication is quite simple actually, and I, ah, have no doubt that a man of your obvious sophistication can, er, grasp-yes, can grasp the situation.” Bandang drew a long breath. His colleagues looked resigned. “Consider this planet, Captain: its people, its culture, isolated and autonomous for more than four hundred years.” (That would be local years, Flandry reminded himself, but still, a long time.) “The, ah, distinctive civilization which has inevitably developed-the special values, beliefs, customs, ah, and… achievements-the socio-economic balance-cannot lightly be upset. Not without, er, great suffering. And loss. Irreparable loss.”
Having an inside view of the Empire, and unprejudiced eyes, Flandry could understand the reluctance of some worlds to have anything to do with same. But there was more here than a simple desire to preserve independence and dignity. If these characters had any knowledge at all of what was going on elsewhere in the universe-and certainly they did-then they would know that Terra wasn’t a menace to them. The Empire was old and sated; except when driven by military necessity, it didn’t want any more real estate. Something big and ugly was being kept hidden on Unan Besar.
“What we, ah, wish to know,” continued Bandang, “is, er, do you come here with official standing? And if so, what message do you convey from your, um, respected superiors?”