tell the chauffeur to come aboard and fetch my bags? Deuced lot of
duffel on these extended trips, don’t y’ know.” He saw the crest rise
and a ripple pass along the fur, perhaps from irritation at his rudeness
in not asking the portmaster’s name.
The driver obeyed, though. He was a husky young civilian who bowed at
sight of Flandry’s gaudy version of dress uniform. “Captain Ahab
Whaling?”
“Right.” Flandry often ransacked ancient books. He had documentation
aboard for several different aliases. Why risk alerting someone? The
more everybody underestimated him, the better. Since he wanted to pump
his fellow, he added, “Ah, you are–”
“Diego Rostovsky, sir, handyman to Distinguished Citizen Lagard. You
mentioned baggage? … Jumping comets, that much? … Well, they’ll have
room at the Residency.”
“Nobody else staying there, what?”
“Not at the moment. We had a bunch for some while, till about a month
ago. But I daresay you know that already, seeing as how you’re
Intelligence yourself.” Rostovsky’s glance at the eye insigne on
Flandry’s breast indicated doubt about the metaphorical truth of it.
However, curiosity kept him friendly. When airlocks had decoupled and
the groundcar was moving along the road to town, he explained: “We don’t
fly unnecessarily. This atmosphere plays too many tricks … Uh, they’ll
be glad to meet you at the Residency. Those officers I mentioned were
too busy to be very good company, except for–” He broke off. “Um. And,
since they left, the isolation and tension … My master and his staff
have plenty to keep them occupied, but Donna Lagard always sees the same
people, servants, guards, commercial personnel and their families. She’s
Terran-reared. She’ll be happy for news and gossip.”
And you judge me the type to furnish them, Flandry knew. Excellent. His
gaze drifted through the canopy, out over somber fields and tenebrous
heaven. But who was that exception whom you are obviously under orders
not to mention?
“Yes, I imagine things are a bit strained,” he said. “Though really, you
need have no personal fears, need you? I mean, after all, if some of the
tribes revolted, an infernal nuisance, ‘speci’lly for trade, but surely
Thursday Landing can hold out against primitives.”
“They aren’t exactly that,” was the answer. “They have industrial
capabilities, and they do business directly with societies still further
developed. We’ve good reason to believe a great many weapons are stashed
around, tactical nukes among them. Oh, doubtless we could fend off an
attack and stand siege. The garrison and defenses have been augmented.
But trade would go completely to pieces–it wouldn’t take many rebels to
interdict traffic–which’d hurt the economy of more planets than
Diomedes … And then, if outsiders really have been the, uh, the–”
“Agents provocateurs,” Flandry supplied. “Or instigators, if y’ prefer.
Either way; I don’t mind.”
Rostovsky scowled. “Well, what might their bosses do?”
Martin Lagard was a small prim man in a large prim office. When he
spoke, in Anglic still tinged by his Atheian childhood, both his goatee
and the tip of his nose waggled. His tunic was of rich material but
unfashionable cut, and he had done nothing about partial baldness.
Blinking across his desk at Flandry, who lounged behind a cigarette, the
Imperial resident said in a scratchy voice, “Well, Fm pleased to make
your acquaintance, Captain Whaling, but frankly puzzled as to what may
be the nature of your assignment. No courier brought me any advance
word.” He sounded hurt.
I’d better soothe him. Flandry had met his kind by the scores, career
administrators, conscientious but rule-bound and inclined to
self-importance. Innovators, or philosophers like Chunderban Desai, were
rare in that service, distrusted by their fellows, destined either for
greatness or for ruin. Lagard had advanced methodically, by the book,
toward an eventual pension.
He was uncreative but not stupid, a vital cog of empire. How could a
planetful of diverse nonhumans be closely governed by Terra, and why
should it be? Lagard was here to assist Imperials in their businesses
and their problems; to oversee continuous collection of information
about this world and put it in proper form to feed the insatiable data
banks at Home; to collect from the natives a modest tribute which paid