The Rebel Worlds

“Where at, sir?”

“Llynathawr. We’ll leave this system cautiously, not to be spotted. When well into space, we’ll run at maximum hyperspeed to Llynathawr.”

“Sir?” Havelock’s mien changed from adoration to puzzlement. “I beg the captain’s pardon, but I don’t understand. I mean, you’ve turned a catastrophe into a triumph, we’ve got the enemy’s current code and he doesn’t know we do, but shouldn’t we make for Ifri? Especially when Kathryn—”

“I have my reasons,” Flandry said. “Never fear, she will not go back to Snelund.” His own expression was so forbidding that no one dared inquire further.

XIV

Again the metal narrowness, chemical-tainted air, incessant beat of driving energies, but also the wintry wonder of stars, the steady brightening of a particular golden point among them. From Virgil to Llynathawr, in this ship, the flit was less than two standard days.

Flandry held captain’s mast. The wardroom was too cramped for everybody, but audiovisual intercoms were tuned. The crew saw him seated, in whites that did not fit well but were nonetheless the full uniform of his rank. Like theirs, his body was gaunt, the bones standing sharply forth in his countenance, the eyes u

“Listen carefully,” he said. “In an irregular situation such as ours, it is necessary to go through various formalities.” He took the depositions which, entered in the log, would retroactively legalize his seizure of Rommel and his status as her master.

“Some among you were put under arrest,” he went on. “That was a precautionary measure. In a civil war, one dares not trust a man without positive confirmation, and obviously I couldn’t plan a surprise move with our entire group. The arrest is hereby terminated and the subjects ordered released. I will specifically record and report that their detention was in no way meant to reflect on their loyalty or competence, and that I recommend every man aboard for promotion and a medal.”

He did not smile when they cheered. His hard monotone went on: “By virtue of the authority vested in me, and in conformance with Naval regulations on extraordinary recruitment, I am swearing the sophont from the planet Dido, known to us by the name Woe, into His Majesty’s armed service on a temporary basis with the rating of common spaceman. In view of the special character of this being, the enrollment shall be entered as that of three new crewpeople.”

Laughter replied. They thought his imp had spoken. They were wrong.

“All detection systems will be kept wide open,” he continued after the brief ceremony. “Instantly upon contact with any Imperial ship, the communications officer will signal surrender and ask for an escort. I daresay we’ll all be arrested when they board us, till our bona fides can be established. However, I trust that by the time we assume Llynathawr orbit, we’ll be cleared.

“A final item. We have an important prisoner aboard. I told Ensign Havelock, who must have told the rest of you, that Lady McCormac will not be returned to the custody of Sector Governor Snelund. Now I want to put the reason on official though secret record, since otherwise our action would be grounds for court-martial.

“It is not in the province of Naval officers to make political decisions. Because of the circumstances about Lady McCormac, including the questionable legality of her original detention, my judgment is that handing her over to His Excellency would be a political decision, fraught with possibly ominous consequences. My duty is to deliver her to Naval authorities who can dispose of her case as they find appropriate. At the same time, we ca

“Therefore, as master of this vessel, and as an officer of the Imperial Naval Intelligence Corps, charged with an informational mission and hence possessed of discretionary powers with respect to confidentiality of data, et cetera, I classify Lady McCormac’s presence among us as a state secret. She will be concealed before we are boarded. No one will mention that she has been along, then or at any future date, until such time as the fact may be granted public release by a qualified governmental agency. To do so will constitute a violation of the laws and rules on security, and subject you to criminal penalties. If asked, you may say that she escaped just before we left Dido. Is that understood?”

Reverberating shouts answered him.

He sat back. “Very well,” he said tiredly. “Resume your stations. Have Lady McCormac brought here for interview.”

He switched off the com. His men departed. I’ve got them in my pocket, he thought. They’d ship out for hell if I were the skipper. He felt no exaltation. I don’t really want another command.

He opened a fresh pack of the cigarets he had found among stocked rations. The room enclosed him in drabness. Under the machine noises and the footfalls outside, silence grew.

But his heart knocked when Kathryn entered. He rose.

She shut the door and stood tall in front of it. Her eyes, alone in the spacecraft, looked on him in scorn. His knife had stayed on her hip.

When she didn’t speak and didn’t speak, he faltered, “I — I hope the captain’s cabin — isn’t too uncomfortable.”

“How do you aim to hide me?” she asked. The voice had its wonted huskiness, and nothing else.

“Mitsui and Petrovic will take the works out of a message capsule. We can pad the casing and tap airholes that won’t be noticed. You can have food and drink and, uh, what else you’ll need. It’ll get boring, lying there in the dark, but shouldn’t be longer than twenty or thirty hours.”

“Then what?”

“If everything goes as I expect, well be ordered into parking orbit around Llynathawr,” he said. “The code teams won’t take much time getting their readouts from our computers. Meanwhile we’ll be interrogated and the men assigned temporarily to Catawraya

“I’ll assert myself as captain of the Rommel, on detached service. My status could be disputed; but in the scramble to organize that attack, I doubt if any bureaucrat will check the exact wording of regs. They’ll be happy to let me have the responsibility for this boat, the more so when my roving commission implies that I need the means to rove.

“As master, I’m required to keep at least two hands on watch. In parking orbit, that’s a technicality, no more. And I’ve seen to it that technically, Woe is three crewmen. I’m reasonably confident I can fast-talk my way out of any objections to heesh. It’s such a minor-looking matter, a method of not tying up two skilled spacers who could be useful elsewhere.

“When you’re alone, heesh will let you out.”

Flandry ran down. He had lectured her in the same way as he might have battered his fists on a steel wall.

“Why?” she said.

“Why what?” He stubbed out his cigaret and reached for another.

“I can understand … maybe … why you did what you’ve done … to Hugh. I wouldn’t ’ve thought it of you, I saw you as brave and good enough to stand for what’s right, but I can imagine that down underneath, your spirit is small.

“But what I can’t understand, can’t grasp,” Kathryn sighed, “is that you — after everything — are bringin’ me back to enslavement. If you hadn’t told Woe to seize me, there’s not a man of your men who wouldn’t’ve turned away while I ran into the forest.”