Slowly, muscle by muscle, Svantozik lowered himself. He said at last, “A proverb goes: ‘The hornbuck may run swifter than you think.’ I touch the nose to you, Captain Flandry.”
“I’m pleased to see my men didn’t hurt you. They had particular orders to get you alive. That was the whole idea.”
“Did I do you so much harm in the Den?” asked Svantozik bitterly.
“On the contrary. You were a more considerate host than I would have been. Maybe I can repay that.” Flandry took out a cigaret. “Forgive me. I have turned the ventilation up. But my brain runs on nicotine.”
“I suppose—” Svantozik’s gaze went to the viewscreen and galactic night, “you know which of those stars is ours.”
“Yes.”
“It will be defended to the last ship. It will take more strength than you can spare from your borders to break us.”
“So you are aware of the Syrax situation.” Flandry trickled smoke through his nose. “Tell me, is my impression correct that you rank high in Ardazir’s space service and in the Urdahu orbekh itself?”
“Higher in the former than the latter,” said Svantozik dully. “The Packmasters and the old females will listen to me, but I have no authority with them.”
“Still—look out there again. To the Sky Cave. What do you see?”
They had come so far now that they glimpsed the thinner part of the nebula, which the interior luminosity could penetrate, from the side. The black cumulus shape towered ominously among the constellations; a dim red glow along one edge touched masses and filaments, as if a dying fire smoldered in some grotto full of spiderwebs. Not many degrees away from it, Ardazir’s sun flashed sword blue.
“The Sky Cave itself, of course,” said Svantozik wonderingly. “The Great Dark. The Gate of the Dead, as those who believe in religion call it … ” His tone, meant to be sardonic, wavered.
“No light, then? It is black to you?” Flandry nodded slowly. “I expected that. Your race is red-blind. You see further into the violet than I do: but in your eyes, I am gray and you yourself are black. Those atrociously combined red squares in your kilt all look equally dark to you.” The Urdahu word he used for “red” actually designated the yellow-orange band; but Svantozik understood.
“Our astronomers have long known there is invisible radiation from the Sky Cave, radio and shorter wavelengths,” he said. “What of it?”
“Only this,” said Flandry. “that you are getting your orders from that nebula.”
Svantozik did not move a muscle. But Flandry saw how the fur bristled again, involuntarily, and the ears lay flat.
The man rolled his cigaret between his fingers, staring at it. “You think the Dispersal of Ymir lies behind your own sudden expansion,” he said. “They supposedly provided you with weapons, robot machinery, knowledge, whatever you needed, and launched you on your career of conquest. Their aim was to rid the galaxy of Terra’s Empire, making you dominant instead among the oxygen breathers. You were given to understand that humans and Ymirites simply did not get along. The technical experts on Ardazir itself, who helped you get started, were they Ymirite?”
“A few,” said Svantozik. “Chiefly, of course, they were oxygen breathers. That was far more convenient.”
“You thought those were mere Ymirite clients, did you not?” pursued Flandry. “Think, though. How do you know any Ymirites actually were on Ardazir? They would have to stay inside a force-bubble ship all the time. Was anything inside that ship, ever, except a remote-control panel? With maybe a dummy Ymirite? It would not be hard to fool you that way. There is nothing mysterious about vessels of that type, they are not hard to build, it is only that races like ours normally have no use for such elaborate additional apparatus—negagrav fields offer as much protection against material particles, and nothing protects against a nuclear shell which has made contact.
“Or, even if a few Ymirites did visit Ardazir … how do you know they were in charge? How can you be sure that their oxygen-breathing ‘vassals’ were not the real masters?”
Svantozik laid back his lip and rasped through fangs: “You flop bravely in the net, Captain. But a mere hypothesis—”