The Rebel Worlds

Flandry shifted his stance. Sweat prickled under his arms. “Well — a plea for leniency—”

He had seldom heard as grim a laugh. “Of your courtesy, Commander, spare us both. I may be a colonial, and I may’ve spent my adult life ’fore marriage doin’ scientific studies on a breed of bein’s that’re scarcely more concerned with mankind than Ymirites are … but I did study history and politics, and bein’ the Fleet Admiral’s lady did give me a lot to observe. ’Tis not possible for the Imperium to grant Hugh a pardon.” Briefly, her tone faltered. “And I … ’ud rather see him dead … than a brain-cha

Flandry took out a cigaret, though his palate was scorched leather. “The idea, my lady,” he said, “is that you’ll tell him what you’ve learned. If nothing else, he may then avoid playing Snelund’s game. He can refuse to give battle on or around those planets that Snelund would like to see bombarded.”

“But without bases, sources of supply—” She drew a shaken breath. It bulged out the coverall she wore in a way to trouble Flandry. “Well, we can talk, of course,” she said in misery. The regained strength fell from her. She half reached toward him. “Commander … if you could let me go—”

Flandry looked away and shook his head. “I’m sorry, my lady. You’ve a capital charge against you, and you’ve been neither acquitted nor pardoned. The single excuse I could give for releasing you would be that it bought your husband’s surrender, and you tell me that’s unthinkable.” He dragged smoke into his lungs and remembered vaguely that he ought soon to get an anticancer booster. “Understand, you won’t be turned back to Snelund. I’d join the rebellion too before permitting that. You’ll come with me to Terra. What you can relate of your treatment at Snelund’s hands, and his brags to you … well, it may cause him difficulty. At a minimum, it ought to gain you the sympathy of men who’re powerful enough to protect you.”

Glancing her way again, he was shocked to see how the blood had left her face. Her eyes stared blank, and beads of perspiration glittered forth. “My lady!” He flung the cigaret aside, made two steps, and stooped above her. “What’s wrong?” he laid a palm on her brow. It was cold. So were her hands, when his slipped as if of themselves down her shoulders and arms. He hunkered in front and chafed them. “My lady—” Kathiyn McCormac stirred. “A stimpill?” she whispered.

Flandry debated calling the ship’s medic, decided not to, and gave her the tablet and a tumbler of water. She gulped. When he saw the corpse color going and the breath becoming steady, it rejoiced in him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, scarcely audible above the murmur of the ship. “The memory bounced out at me too quick.”

“I said the wrong thing,” he stammered, contrite.

“Not your fault.” She stared at the deck. He couldn’t help noticing how long the lashes were against her bronze skin. “Terran mores are different from ours. To you, what happened to me was … unfortunate, nasty, yes, but not a befoulin’ I’ll never quite cleanse me of, not a thing makes me wonder if I really should want to see Hugh ever again … Maybe, though, you’ll understand some if I tell you how often he used drugs and brain-scramblers. Time and again, I was trapped in a nightmare where I couldn’t think, wasn’t me, had no will, wasn’t anything but an animal doin’ what he told me, to ’scape pain—”

I oughtn’t to hear this, Flandry thought. She wouldn’t speak of it if her self-command had entirely returned. How can I leave?

“My lady,” he attempted, “you said a fact, that it wasn’t you. You shouldn’t let it count. If your husband’s half the man you claim, he won’t.”

She sat motionless a while. The stimulol acted faster than normal on her; evidently she wasn’t in the habit of using chemical crutches. At length she raised her head. The countenance was deeply flushed, but the big body seemed in repose. And she smiled,

“You are a strider,” she said.

“Uh … feeling well now?”

“Better, anyways. Could we talk straight business?”

Flandry gusted a secret sigh of relief. A touch weak in his own knees, he sat down on the bunk and began another cigaret. “Yes, I rather urgently want to,” he said. “For the proverbial nonce, we have common interests, and your information might be what lets us carry on instead of scuttling off for home and mother.”

“What d’you need to know? I may not be able to answer some questions, and may refuse to answer others.”

“Agreed. But let’s try on a few. We’ve caught no trace of astronautical activity in this system. A fleet the size of Hugh McCormac’s should register one way or another. If nothing else, by neutrino emission from powerplants. What’s he done? He might be fairly close to the sun, keeping behind it with respect to us; or might be lying doggo a goodly distance out, like half a light-year; or might have hauled mass for some different territory altogether; or — Have you any idea?”

“No.”

“Certain you don’t?”

She bridled. “If I did, would I tell?”

“Sizzle it, one destroyer doesn’t make a task force! Put it this way: How can we contact him before battle commences?”

She yielded. “I don’t know, and that’s honest,” she said, meeting his stare without wavering. “I can tell you this, whatever Hugh’s pla

“Marvelous,” Flandry groaned. “Well, how about the radio silence?”

“Oh, that’s easier to ’splain, I think. We don’t have many stations broadcastin’ with enough power, at the right wavelengths, to be detectable far out. Virgil’s too apt to hash them up with solar storms. Mainly we send tight beams via relay satellites. Radiophones’re common — isolated villages and steadin’s need them — but they natur’ly use frequencies that the ionosphere ’ull contain. Virgil gives Aeneas a mighty deep ionosphere. In short, ’tisn’t hard to get ’long without the big stations, and I s’pose they’re doin’ it so enemy navigators ’ull have extra trouble obtainin’ in-system positions.”

You understand that principle too — never giving the opposition a free ride, never missing a chance to complicate his life? Flandry thought with respect. I’ve known a number of civilians, including officers’ spouses, who didn’t.

“What about interplanetary communications?” he asked. “I assume you do mining and research on the sister worlds. You mentioned having been involved yourself. Do you think those bases were evacuated?”

“N-no. Not the main one on Dido, at least. It’s self-supportin’, kind of, and there’s too big an investment in apparatus, records, relationships with natives.” Pride talking: “I know my old colleagues. They won’t abandon simply ’cause of an invasion.”

“But your people may have suspended interplanetary talk during the emergency?”

“Yes, belike. ’Speci’ly since the Josipists probly won’t find any data on where everything is in our system. And what they can’t find, they can’t wreck.”

“They wouldn’t,” Flandry protested. “Not in mere spite.”

She retorted with an acrid: “How do you know what His Excellency may’ve told their admiral?”

The intercom’s buzz saved him from devising a reply. He flipped the switch. “Bridge to captain,” came Rovian’s thick, hissing tones. “A ship has been identified at extreme range. It appears to have started on a high-thrust intercept course to ours.”

“I’ll be right there.” Flandry stood. “You heard, my Lady?” She nodded. He thought he could see how she strained to hold exterior calm.

“Report to Emergency Station Three,” he said. “Have the yeoman on duty fit you with a spacesuit and outline combat procedure. When we close with that chap, everyone goes into armor and harness. Three will be your post. It’s near the middle of the hull, safest place, not that that’s a very glowing encomium. Tell the yeoman that I’ll want your helmet transceiver on a direct audiovisual link to the bridge and the comshack. Meanwhile, stay in this cabin, out of the way.”