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A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS==============================Poul Anderson=============[22 feb 2003--scanned for #bookz][23 feb 2003--proofed for #bookz]I-Every planet in the story is cold--even Terra, though Flandry came homeon a warm evening of northern summer. There the chill was in the spirit.He felt a breath of it as he neared. Somehow, talk between him and hisson had drifted to matters Imperial. They had avoided all such duringtheir holiday.Terra itself had not likely reminded them. The globe hung beautiful instarry darkness, revealed by a view-screen in the cabin where they sat.It was almost full, because they were accelerating with the sun behindthem and were not yet close enough to start on an approach curve. Atthis remove it shone white-swirled blue, unutterably pure, near dewdropLuna. Nothing was visible of the scars that man had made upon it.And the saloon was good to be in, bulkheads nacreous gray, benchespadded in maroon velvyl, table of authentic teak whereon stood Scotchwhisky and everything needed for the use thereof, warm and flawlesslyrecycled air through which gamboled a dance tune and drifted an odor oflilacs. The Hooligan, private speedster of Captain Sir Dominic Flandry,was faster, better armed, and generally more versatile than any vesselof her class had a moral right to be; but her living quarters reflectedher owner's philosophy that, if one is born into an era of decadence,one may as well enjoy it while it lasts.He leaned back, inhaled deeply of his cigarette, took more smokiness ina sip from his glass, and regarded Dominic Hazeltine with some concern.If the frontier was truly that close to exploding--and the boy must gothere again ... "Are you sure?" he asked. "What proved facts have yougot--proved by yourself, not somebody else? Why wouldn't I have heardmore?"His companion returned a steady look. "I don't want to make you feelold," he said; and the knowledge passed through Flandry that alieutenant commander of Naval Intelligence, twenty-seven standard yearsof age, wasn't really a boy, nor was his father any longer the boy whohad begotten him. Then Hazeltine smiled and took the curse off: "Well, Imight want to, just so I can hope that at your age I'll have acquired,let alone kept, your capacity for the three basic things in life.""Three?" Flandry raised his brows. "Feasting, fighting, and--Wait; ofcourse I haven't been along when you were in a fight. But I've no doubtyou perform as well as ever in that department too. Still, you told mefor the last three years you've stayed in the Solar System, taking lifeeasy. If the whole word about Dennitza hasn't reached the Emperor--andapparently it's barely starting to--why should it have come to apampered pet of his?""Hm. I'm not really. He pampers with a heavy hand. So I avoid the courtas much as politeness allows. This indefinite furlough I'm on--nobodybut him would dare call me back to duty, unless I grow bored and requestassignment--that's the only important privilege I've taken. Aside fromthe outrageous amount of talent, capability, and charm with which I wasborn; and I do my best to share those chromosomes."Flandry had spoken lightly in half a hope of getting a similar response.They had bantered throughout their month-long jaunt, whether on abreakneck hike in the Great Rift of Mars or gambling in a miners' divein Low Venusberg, running the rings of Saturn or dining in elegancebeneath its loveliness on Iapetus with two ladies expert and expensive.Must they already return to realities? They'd been more friends thanfather and son. The difference in age hardly showed. They borewell-muscled height in common, supple movement, gray eyes, baritonevoice. Flandry's face stood out in a perhaps overly handsome combinationof straight nose, high cheekbones, cleft chin--the result of a biosculpjob many years past, which he had never bothered to change again--andtrim mustache. His sleek seal-brown hair was frosted at the temples;when Hazeltine accused him of bringing this about by artifice, he hadgrinned and not denied it. Though both wore civilian garb, Flandry'siridescent puff-sleeved blouse, scarlet cummerbund, flared bluetrousers, and curly-toed beefleather slippers opposed the other's plaincoverall.Broader features, curved nose, full mouth, crow's-wing locks recalledPersis d'Io as she had been when she and Flandry said farewell on aplanet now destroyed, he not knowing she bore his child. The tan ofstrange suns, the lines creased by squinting into strange weathers, hadnot altogether gone from Hazeltine in the six weeks since he reachedTerra. But his unsophisticated ways meant only that he had spent hislife on the fringes of the Empire. He had caroused with a gusto to matchhis father's. He had shown the same taste in speech--("--an itchy position for me, my own admiral looking for a nice lethaljob he could order me to do," Flandry reminisced. "Fenross hated myguts. He didn't like the rest of me very much, either. I saw I'd betterproduce a stratagem, and fast."("Did you?" Hazeltine inquired.("Of course. You see me here, don't you? It's practically a sine qua nonof a field agent staying alive, that he be able to outthink not just theopposition, but his superiors."("No doubt you were inspired by the fact that 'stratagem' spelledbackwards is 'megatarts.' The prospect of counting your loose women bymillions should give plenty of incentive."(Flandry stared. "Now I'm certain you're my bairn! Though to be frank,that awesomely pleasant notion escaped me. Instead, having developed myscheme, I confronted a rather ghastly idea which has haunted me everafterward: that maybe there's no one alive more intelligent than I.")--and yet, and yet, an underlying earnestness always remained with him.Perhaps he had that from his mother: that, and pride. She'd let theinfant beneath her heart live, abandoned her titled official lover,resumed her birthname, gone from Terra to Sassania and started anew as adancer, at last married reasonably well, but kept young Dominic by hertill he enlisted. Never had she sent word back from her frontier home,not when Flandry well-nigh singlehanded put down the barbarians ofScotha and was knighted for it, not when Flandry well-nigh singlehandedrescued the new Emperor's favorite granddaughter and headed off aprovincial rebellion and was summoned Home to be rewarded. Nor had herson, who always knew his father's name, called on him until lately, whenfar enough along in his own career that nepotism could not be thoughtnecessary.Thus Dominic Hazeltine refused the offer of merry chitchat and said inhis burred un-Terran version of Anglic, "Well, if you've been takingwhat amounts to a long vacation, the more reason why you wouldn't havekept trace of developments. Maybe his Majesty simply hasn't beenbothering you about them, and has been quite concerned himself for quitesome while. Regardless, I've been yonder and I know."Flandry dropped the remnant of his cigarette in an ash-taker. "You woundmy vanity, which is no mean accomplishment," he replied. "Remember, forthree or four years earlier--between the time I came to his notice andthe time we could figure he was planted on the throne too firmly to havea great chance of being uprooted--I was one of his several right hands.Field and staff work both, specializing in the problem of making themarches decide they'd really rather keep Hans for their Emperor thanrevolt all over again. Do you think, if he sees fresh trouble where Ican help, he won't consult me? Or do you think, because I've beenutilizing a little of the hedonism I fought so hard to preserve, I'velost interest in my old circuits? No, I've followed the news, and anoccasional secret report."He stirred, tossed off his drink, and added, "Besides, you claim theGospodar of Dennitza is our latest problem child. But you've also saidyou were working Sector Arcturus: almost diametrically opposite, andwell inside those vaguenesses we are pleased to call the borders of theEmpire. Tell me, then--you've been almighty unspecific about youroperations, and I supposed that was because you were under security, anddidn't pry--tell me, as far as you're allowed, what does the spacearound Arcturus have to do with Dennitza? With anything in the TaurianSector?""I stayed mum because I didn't want to spoil this occasion," Hazeltinesaid. "From what Mother told me, I expected fun, when I could get aleave long enough to justify the trip to join you; but you've openedwhole universes to me that I never guessed existed." He flushed. "If Iever gave any thought to such things, I self-righteously labeled themVice.'""Which they are," Flandry put in. "What you bucolic types don't realizeis that worthwhile vice doesn't mean lolling around on cushions eatingdrugged custard. How dismal! I'd rather be virtuous. Decadence requiresapplication. But go on.""We'll land now, and I'll report back," Hazeltine said. "I don't knowwhere they'll send me next, and doubtless won't be free to tell you.While the chance remains, I'll be honest. I came here wanting to knowyou as a man, but also wanting to, oh, alert you if nothing else,because I think your brains will be sorely needed, and it's damn hard tocommunicate through channels."Indeed, Flandry admitted.His gaze went to the stars in the viewscreeen. Without amplification,few that he could see lay in the more or less 200-light-year radius ofthat rough and blurry-edged spheroid named the Terran Empire. Those weregiants, visible by virtue of shining across distances we can traverse,under hyperdrive, but will never truly comprehend; and they filled themerest, tiniest fragme... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]