made forest. Wings cruised on high, maybe upbearing brains that thought,
maybe simple beasts of prey. Faint through the hull sounded a yowl of
wind.
“Very well,” Kossara said grimly. “I’ll ask the question you want me to
ask. Why are we here? Aren’t you supposed to report in at Thursday
Landing?”
“I exercised a special dispensation I have,” Flandry said. “The
Residency doesn’t yet know we’ve come. In fact, unless my right hand has
lost its cunning, nobody does.”
At least I get a human startlement out of her. He liked seeing
expressions cross her face, like clouds and sunbeams on a gusty spring
day. “You see,” he explained, “if subversive activities are going on,
there’s bound to be a spy or two around Imperial headquarters. News of
your return would be just about impossible to suppress. And since you’re
in the custody of a Naval officer, it’d alarm the outfit we’re after.
“Whereas, if you suddenly reappear by yourself, right in this hotspot,
you’ll surprise them. They won’t have time to get suspicious, I trust.
They’ll make you welcome–”
“Why should they?” Kossara interrupted. “They’ll wonder how I got back.”
“Ah, no. Because they won’t know you were ever gone.”
She stared. Flandry explained: “Your companions died. If rebel observers
learned that you lived, they learned nothing else. No matter how
idiotically my colleagues behaved toward you, I’m sure they followed
doctrine and let out no further information. You vanished into their
building, and that was that. You were brought from there to the
spaceship in a sealed vehicle, weren’t you? … Yes, I knew it … The
Corpsmen had no reason to announce you’d been condemned and deported,
therefore they did not.
“Accordingly, the rest of the gang–human if any are left on Diomedes,
and most certainly a lot of natives–have no reason to suppose you
haven’t just been held incommunicado. In fact, that would be a much more
logical thing to do than shipping you off to Terra for purchase by any
blabbermouth.”
She frowned, less in dislike of him than from being caught up,
willy-nilly, by the intellectual problem which his planned deception
presented. “But wasn’t it a special team that caught and, and processed
me? They may well have left the planet by now.”
“If so, you can say they gave you in charge of the Intelligence agents
stationed here semi-permanently. In fact, that’s the safest thing for
you to maintain in any event, and quite plausible. We’ll work out a
detailed story for you. I have an outline already, subject to your
criticism. You wheedled a measure of freedom for yourself. That’s
plausible too, if you don’t mind pretending you became the mistress of a
bored, lonely commander. At last you managed to steal an aircar. I can
supply that; we have two in the hold, one a standard civilian
convertible we can set for Diomedean conditions. You fled back here,
having enough memories left to know this is where your chances are best
of being found by your organization.”
She tensed again, and stretched the words out: “What will you do
meanwhile?”
Flandry shrugged. “Not having had your preventive-medical treatment, I’m
limited in my scope. Let’s consult. Tentatively, I’ve considered making
an appearance in a persona I’ve used before, a harmlessly mad
Cosmenosist missionary prospecting for customers on yet another globe.
However, I may do best to stay put aboard ship, following your
adventures till the time looks ripe for whatever sort of action seems
indicated.”
Her starkness deepened. “How will you keep track of me?”
From his pocket Flandry took a ring. On its gold band sparkled what
resembled a sapphire. “Wear this. If anybody asks, say you got it from
your jailer-lover. It’s actually a portable transmitter, same as your
bracelet was on Terra but with its own power source.”
“That little bit of a thing?” She sounded incredulous. “Needing no
electronic network around? Reaching beyond line-of-sight? And not
detectable by those I spy on?”
Flandry nodded. “It has all those admirable qualities.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“I’m not at liberty to describe the principle. Anyway, nobody ever told
me. I’ve indulged in idle speculations about modulated neutrino
emission, but they’re doubtless wildly wrong. What I do know is that the