Ulfgeir, Manuel the Great, Manuel the Wise–would you let your war lords
turn these instruments to their own vile ends? No!”
And Flandry understood.
Did Aycharaych, half blinded by his dead, see what he had given away?
“Dominic,” he whispered hastily, shakily, “I’ve used you ill, as I’ve
used many. It was from no will of mine. Oh, true, an art, a sport–yours
too–but we had our services, you to a civilization you know is dying, I
to a heritage I know can abide while this sun does. Who has the better
right?” He held forth unsubstantial hands.
“Dominic, stay. We’ll think how to keep your ships off and save
Chereion–”
Almost as if he were again the machine that condemned his son, Flandry
said, “I’d have to lure my company into some kind of trap. Merseia would
take the planet back, and the help it gives. Your shadow show would go
on. Right?”
“Yes. What are a few more lives to you? What is Terra? In ten thousand
years, who will remember the empires? They can remember you, though, who
saved Chereion for them.”
Candle flames stood around a coffin. Flandry shook his head. “There’ve
been too many betrayals in too many causes.” He wheeled. “Men, we’re
returning.”
“Aye, sir.” The replies shuddered with relief.
Aycharaych’s eidolon brought fingers together as if he prayed. Flandry
touched his main grav switch. Thrust pushed harness against breast. He
rose from the radiant city, into the waning murky day. Chill flowed
around him. Behind floated his robot-encased men.
“Brigate!” bawled Vymezal. “Beware!”
Around the topmost tower flashed a score of javelin shapes. Firebeams
leaped out of their nozzles. Remote-controlled flyer guns, Flandry knew.
Does Aycharaych still hope, or does he only want revenge? “Chives,” he
called into his sender, “come get us!”
Sparks showered off Vymezal’s plate. He slipped aside in midair, more
fast and nimble than it seemed he could be in armor. His energy weapon,
nearly as heavy as the assailants, flared back. Thunders followed
brilliances. Bitterness tinged air. A mobile blast cannon reeled in
midflight, spun downward, crashed in a street, exploded. Fragments
ravaged a fragile facade.
“Shield the captain,” Vymezal boomed.
Flandry’s men ringed him in. Shots tore at them. The noise stamped in
his skull, the stray heat whipped over his skin. Held to his protection,
the marines could not dodge about. The guns converged.
A shadow fell, a lean hull blocked off the sun. Flames reaped. Echoes
toned at last to silence around smoking ruin down below. Vymezal shouted
triumph. He waved his warriors aside, that Flandry might lead them
through the open lock, into the Hooligan.
Wounded, dwindled, victorious, the Dennitzan fleet took orbits around
Chereion. Within the command bridge, Bodin Miyatovich and his chieftains
stood for a long while gazing into the viewscreens. The planet before
them glowed among the stars, softly, secretly, like a sign of peace. But
it was the pictures they had seen earlier, the tale they had heard,
which made those hard men waver.
Miyatovich even asked through his flagship’s rustling stillness: “Must
we bombard?”
“Yes,” Flandry said. “I hate the idea too.”
Qow of Novi Aferoch stirred. Lately taken off his crippled light
cruiser, he was less informed than the rest. “Can’t sappers do what’s
needful?” he protested.
“I wish they could,” Flandry sighed. “We haven’t time. I don’t know how
many millennia of history we’re looking down on. How can we read them
before the Merseian navy arrives?”
“Are you sure, then, the gain to us can justify a deed which someday
will make lovers of beauty, seekers of knowledge, curse our names?” the
zmay demanded. “Can this really be the center of the opposition’s
Intelligence?”
“I never claimed that,” Flandry said. “In fact, obviously not. But it
must be important as hell itself. We here can give them no worse setback
than striking it from their grasp.”
“Your chain of logic seems thin.”
“Of course it is! Were mortals ever certain? But listen again, Qow.
“When the Merseians discovered Chereion, they were already
conquest-hungry. Aycharaych, among the ghosts those magnificent
computers had been raising for him–computers and programs we today
couldn’t possibly invent–he saw they’d see what warlike purposes might