XII

In the Spartan tradition of Vach lords, the office of Ydwyr the Seeker lacked any furniture save desk and cabinets. Though he and Morioch Sun-in-eye were seated, it was on feet and tails, which looked to a human as if they were crouched to spring. That, and their size, great even for Wilwidh Merseians, and faint but sharp body odors, and rumbling bass tones, and the explosive gutturals of Eriau, gave Djana a sense of anger that might break loose in slaughter. She could see that Flandry was worried and caught his hand in the cold dampness of hers. He made no response; standing rigid, he listened.

"Perhaps the datholch has been misinformed about this affair," Morioch said with strained courtesy.

Flandry didn't know what the title signified—and Merseian grades were subtle, variable things—but it was plainly a high one, since the aristocratic-deferential form of address was used.

"I shall hearken to whatever the qanryf wishes to say," Ydwyr replied, in the same taut manner but with the merely polite verbal construction. Flandry would have understood "qanryf (the first letter representing, more or less, k followed by dh = voiced th) from the argent saltire on Morioch's black uniform, had he not met the word often before. Morioch was the commandant of this base, or anyhow on its naval aspect; but the base was a minor one.

He—stockily built, hard of features, incongruous against the books and reelboxes whose shelves filled every available square centimeter of wall space—declared: "This is no capture of a scout who simply chanced by. The female alone should … unquestionably does tell the datholch that. But I didn't want to intrude on your work by speaking to you of mine. Besides, since it's confidential, the fewer who are told, the better. Correct?"

No guards had come in with their chief. They waited beyond the archway curtains, which were not too soundproof to pass a cry for help. Opposite, seen through a window, waited Talwin's lethal summer.

Blue-black and enormous, a thunderhead was piling up over the stockade, where the banners of those Vachs and regions that had members here whipped on their staffs.

Ydwyr's mouth drew into thinner lines. " I could have been trusted," he said. Flandry didn't believe that mere wounded vanity spoke. Had a prerogative been infringed? What was Ydwyr?

He wore a gray robe without emblems; at its sash hung only a purse. He was taller than Morioch, but lean, wrinkled, aging. At first he had spoken softly, when the humans were brought before him from their quarters—on his demand after he learned of their arrival. As soon as the commandant had given him a slight amount of back talk, he had stiffened, and power fairly blazed from him.

Morioch confronted it stoutly. "That needs no utterance," he said. "I hope the datholch accepts that I saw no reason to trouble you with matters outside your own purposes here."

"Does the qanryf know every conceivable limit of my purposes?"

"No … however—" Raided but game, Morioch redonned formality. "May I explain everything to the datholch?"

Ydwyr sighed permission. Morioch caught a breath and commenced:

"When the Brythioch stopped by, these months agone, her chief intelligence officer gave me a word that did not then seem very interesting. You recall she'd been at Irumclaw, the Terran frontier post. There a mei—I have his name on record but don't remember it—had come on a scoutship pilot he'd met previously. The pilot, the male before you here, was running surveillance as part of his training for their Intelligence Corps. Normally that'd have meant nothing—standard procedure of theirs—but this particular male had been on Merseia in company with a senior Terran agent. Those two got involved in something which is secret from me but, I gather, caused major trouble to the Roidhunate. Protector Brechdan Ironrede was said to have been furious."

Ydwyr started. Slowly he lifted one bony green hand and said, "You have not told me the prisoner's name."

"Let the datholch know this is Junior Lieutenant Dominic Flandry."

Silence fell, except for the wind whose rising skirl began to pierce the heavily insulated walls. Ydwyr s gaze probed and probed. Djana whispered frantic, repeated prayers. Flandry felt the sweat slide down his ribs. He needed all his will to hold steady.

"Yes," Ydwyr said at last, "I have heard somewhat about him."

"Then the datholch may appreciate this case more than I do," Morioch said, looking relieved. "To be honest, I knew nothing of Flandry till the Brythioch—"

"Continue your account," Ydwyr said unceremoniously.

Morioch's relief vanished, but he plowed on: "As the datholch wishes. Whatever the importance of Flandry himself—he appears a cub to me—he was associated with this other agent … khraich, yes, it comes back … Max Abrams. And Abrams was, is, definitely a troublemaker of the worst sort. Flandry appears to be a protégé of his. Perhaps, already, an associate? Could his assignment to Irumclaw involve more than showed on the skin?

"This much the mei reported to the chief intelligence officer of his ship. The officer, in turn, directed our agents in the city"— Rax, of course, and those in Rax's pay, Flandry thought through the loudening wind—"to keep close watch on this young male. If he did anything unusual, it should be investigated as thoroughly as might be.

"The officer asked me to stand by. As I've said, nothing happened for months, until I'd almost forgotten. We get so many leads that never lead anywhere in intelligence work.

"But lately a courier torpedo arrived. The message was that Flandry was collaborating closely but, apparently, secretly, with the leader of an underworld gang. The secrecy is understandable—ultra-illegal behavior—and our agents' first guess was that normal corruption was all that was involved." Scorn freighted Morioch's voice. "However, following orders, they infiltrated the operation. They learned what it was."

He described Wayland, to the extent of Ammon's knowledge, and Ydwyr nodded. "Yes," the old Merseian said, "I understand. The planet is too far from home to be worth our while—at present—but it is not desirable that Terrans reoccupy it."

"Our Irumclaw people are good," Morioch said. "They had to make a decision and act on their own.

Their plan succeeded. Does the datholch agree they should get extra reward?"

"They had better," Ydwyr said dryly, "or they might decide Terrans are more generous masters. You have yet to tell them to eliminate those who know about the lost planet, correct?—Well, but what did they do?"

"The datholch sees this female. After Flandry had investigated the planet, she captured him and brought his boat to a section where our pickets were bound to detect it."

"Hun-n-nh … is she one of ours?"

"No, she thought she was working for a rival human gang. But the datholch may agree she shows a talent for that kind of undertaking."

Flandry couldn't help it, too much compassion welled through his despair, he bent his head down toward Djana's and muttered: "Don't be afraid. They're pleased with what you did for them. I expect they'll pay you something and let you go."

To spy on us— driven by blackmail as well as money— but you can probably vanish into the inner Empire. Or … maybe you'd like the work. Your species never treated you very kindly.

"And that is the whole tale, qanryf?" Ydwyr asked.

"Yes," Morioch said. "Now the datholch sees the importance. Bad enough that we had to capture a boat. That'll provoke a widespread search, which might stumble on places like Talwin. The odds are against it, true, and we really had no choice. But we cannot release Flandry."

"I did not speak of that," Ydwyr said, cold again. "I did, and do, want both these beings in my custody."

"But—"

"Do you fear they may escape?"

"No. Certainly not. But the datholch must know … the value of this prisoner as a subject for interrogation—"

"The methods your folk would use would leave him of no value for anything else," Ydwyr rapped.

"And he can't have information we don't already possess; I assume the Intelligence Corps is not interested in his private life. He is here only through a coincidence."

"Can the datholch accept that strong a coincidence? Flandry met the met by chance, yes. But that he, of every possible pilot, went off to the lost planet as a happenstance: to that I must say no."

"I say yes. He is precisely the type to whom such things occur. If one exposes oneself to life, qanryf, life will come to one. I have my own uses for him and will not see him ruined. I also want to learn more about this female. They go into my keeping."

Morioch flushed and well-nigh roared: "The datholch forgets that Flandry worked tail-entwined with Abrams to thwart the Protector!"

Ydwyr lifted a hand, palm down, and chopped it across his breast. Flandry sucked in a breath. That gesture was seldom used, and never by those who did not have the hereditary right. Morioch swallowed, bent head above folded hands, and muttered, "I beg the datholch's forgiveness." Merseians didn't often beg, either.

"Granted," Ydwyr said. "Dismissed."

"Kh-h … the datholch understands I must report this to headquarters with what recommendations my duty demands I make?"

"Certainly. I shall be sending messages of my own. No censure will be in them." Ydwyr's hauteur vanished. Though his smile was not a man's, but only pulled the upper lip back off the teeth, Flandry recognized friendliness. "Hunt well, Morioch Sun-in-eye."

"I thank … and wish a good hunt … to you." Morioch rose, saluted, and left.

Outside, the sky had gone altogether black. Lightning flamed, thunder bawled, wind yammered behind galloping sheets of rain, whose drops smoked back off the ground. Djana fell into Flandry's arms; they upheld each other.

Releasing her, he turned to Ydwyr and made the best Merseian salute of honor which a human could.

"The datholch is thanked with my whole spirit," he said in Eriau.

Ydwyr smiled anew. The overhead fluoropanel, automatically brightening as the storm deepened, made the room into a warm little cave. (Or a cool one; that rain was not far below its boiling point.) The folds in his robe showed him relaxing. "Be seated if you desire," he invited.

The humans were quick to accept, lowering themselves to the rubbery floor and leaning back against a cabinet. Their knees were grateful. To be sure, there was a psychological drawback; now Ydwyr loomed over them like a heathen god.

But I'm not going to be drugged, brainscrubbed, or shot. Not today. Maybe … maybe, eventually, an exchange deal …

Ydwyr had returned to dignified impassivity. I mustn't keep him waiting. Strength seeped back into Flandry's cells. He said, "May I ask the datholch to tell me his standing, in order that I can try to show him his due honor?'

"We set most ritual aside—of necessity—in my group here," the Merseian answered. "But I am surprised that one who speaks Eriau fluently and has been on our home planet has not encountered the term before."

"The uh, the datholch—may I inform the datholch, his language was crammed into me in tearing haste; my stay on his delightful world was brief; and what I was taught at the Academy dealt mainly with—uh—"

"I told you the simple forms of respect will do on most occasions." Ydwyr's smile turned downward this time, betokening a degree of grimness. "And I know how you decided not to end your sentence.

Your education dealt with us primarily as military opponents." He sighed. "Khraich, I don't fear the tactless truth. We Merseians have plenty of equivalents of you, the God knows. It's regrettable but inevitable, till your government changes its policies. I bear no personal animosity, Lieutenant Dominic Flandry. I far prefer friendship, and hope a measure of it may take root between us while we are together.

"As for your question, datholch is a civilian rather than a military rank." He did not speak in exact equivalents, for Merseia separated "civilian" and "military" differently from Terra, and less clearly; but Flandry got the idea. "It designates an aristocrat who heads an enterprise concerned with expanding the Race's frontier." (Frontier of knowledge, trade, influence, territory, or what? He didn't say, and quite likely it didn't occur to him that there was any distinction.) "As for my standing, I belong to the Vach Urdiolch and"—he stood up and touched his brow while he finished—"it is my high honor that a brother of my late noble father is, in the glory of the God, Almighty Roidhun of Merseia, the Race, and all holdings, dominions, and subordinates of the Race."

Flandry scrambled to his feet and yanked Djana to hers. "Salute!" he hissed in her ear, in Anglic.

"Like me! This chap's a nephew of their grand panjandrum!"

Who might or might not be a figurehead, depending on the circumstances of his reign—and surely, that he was always elected from among the Urdiolchs, by the Hands of the Vachs and the heads of Merseian states organized otherwise than the anciently dominant culture—from among the Urdiolchs, the only landless Vach—surely this was in part a check on his powers—but surely, too, the harshest, most dictatorial Protector regarded his Roidhun with something of the same awe and pride that inspired the lowliest "foot" or "tail"—for the Roidhun stood for the God, the unity, and the hope of the warrior people—Flandry's mind swirled close to chaos before he brought it under control.

"Be at ease." Ydwyr reseated himself and gestured the humans to do likewise. "I myself am nothing but a scientist." He leaned forward. "Of course, I served my time in the Navy, and continue to hold a reserve commission; but my interests are xenological. This is essentially a research station. Talwin was discovered by accident about—uh-h-h-h—fifteen Terran years ago. Astronomers had noted an unusual type of pulsar in this vicinity: extremely old, close to extinction. A team of physicists went for a look. On the way back, taking routine observations as they traveled, they detected the unique orbital scramble around Siekh and investigated it too."

Flandry thought sadly that humans might well have visited that pulsar in early days—it was undoubtedly noted in the pilot's data for these parts, rare objects being navigationally useful—but that none of his folk in the present era would venture almost to the ramparts of a hostile realm just to satisfy their curiosity.

Ydwyr was proceeding: "When I learned about Tal-win's extraordinary natives, I decided they must be studied, however awkwardly near your borders this star lies."

Flandry could imagine the disputes and wire-pullings that had gone on, and the compromise which finally was reached, that Talwin should also be an advanced base for keeping an eye on the Terrans. No large cost was involved, nor any large risk … nor any large chance of glory and promotion, which last fact helped explain Morioch's eagerness to wring his prisoners dry.

The lieutenant wet his lips. "You, uh, you are most kind, sir," he said; the honorific appeared implicitly in the pronoun. "What do you wish of us?"

"I would like to get to know you well," Ydwyr said frankly. "I have studied your race in some detail; I have met individual members of it; I have assisted in diplomatic business; but you remain almost an abstraction, almost a complicated forcefield rather than a set of beings with minds and desires and souls.

It is curious, and annoying, that I should be better acquainted with Domrath and Ruadrath than with Terrans, our one-time saviors and teachers, now our mighty rivals. I want to converse with you.

"Furthermore, since any intelligence agent must know considerable xenology, you may be able to help us in our research on the autochthons here. Of a different species and culture, you may gain insights that have escaped us.

"This is the more true, and you are the more intriguing in your own right, because of who you are. By virtue of my family connections, I obtained the story—or part of the story—behind the Starkad affair.

You are either very capable, Dominic Flandry, or else very lucky, and I wonder if there may not be a destiny in you."

The term he used was obscure, probably archaic, and the man had to guess its meaning from context and cognation. Fate? Mana? Odd phrasing for a scientist.

"In return," Ydwyr finished, "I will do what I can to protect you." With the bleak honesty of his class:

"I do not promise to succeed."

"Do you think, sir … I might ever be released?" Flandry asked.

"No. Not with the information you hold. Or not without so deep a memory wiping that no real personality would remain. But you should find life tolerable in my service."

If you find my service worthwhile, Flandry realized, and if higher-ups don't overrule you when they learn about me. "I have no doubt I shall, sir. Uh, maybe I can begin with a suggestion, for you to pass on to the qanryf if you see fit."

Ydwyr waited.

"I heard the lords speaking about, uh, ordering that the man who hired me—Leon Ammon—" might as well give him the name, it'll be in Rax's dispatch " —that he be eliminated, to eliminate knowledge of Wayland from the last Terrans. I'd suggest going slow and cautious there. You know how alarmed and alerted they must be, sir, even on sleepy old Irumclaw Base, when I haven't reported in. It'd be risky passing on an order to your agents, let alone having them act. Best wait awhile. Besides, I don't know myself how many others Ammon told. I should think your operatives ought to make certain they've identified everyone who may be in on the secret, before striking.

"And there's no hurry, sir. Ammon hasn't any ship of his own, nor dare he hire one of the few civilian craft around. Look how easy it was to subvert the interplanetary ferrier we used, without ever telling him what a treasure was at stake. Oh, you haven't heard that detail yet, have you, sir? It's part of how I was trapped.

"Ammon will have to try discovering what went wrong; then killing those who betrayed him, or those he can find or thinks he's found; and making sure they don't kill him first; and locating another likely-looking scoutship pilot, and sounding him out over months, and waiting for assignment rotation to put him on the route passing nearest Wayland, and—Well, don't you see, sir, nothing's going to happen that you need bother about for more than a year? If you want to be ultra-cautious, I suppose you can post a warcraft in the Mimirian System; I can tell you the coordinates, though frankly, I think you'd be wasting your effort. But mainly, sir, your side has everything to lose and nothing to gain by moving fast against Ammon."

"Khraich." Ydwyr rubbed palm across chin, a sandpapery sound—under the storm-noise—despite his lack of beard. "Your points are well taken. Yes, I believe I will recommend that course to Morioch.

And, while my authority in naval affairs is theoretically beneath his, in practice—"

His glance turned keen. "I take for granted, Dominic Flandry, you speak less in the hope of ingratiating yourself with me than in the hope of keeping events on Irumclaw in abeyance until you can escape."

"Uh—uh, well, sir—"

Ydwyr chuckled. "Don't answer. I too was a young male, once. I do trust you won't be so foolish as to try a break. If you accomplished it, the planet would soon kill you. If you failed, I would have no choice but to turn you over to Morioch's inquisitors."