Flandry grew rigid. Glory blazed within him. A single shell-burst, and Ardazir was headless!
Gradually the stiffness and the splendor departed. He finished securing his captive. They helped each other up. “Come along,” said the human. “I’ve work to do.”
XVIII
Cerulia did not lie anywhere near the route between Syrax and Sol. But Flandry went home that way. He didn’t quite know why. Certainly it was not with any large willingness.
He landed at Vixen’s main spaceport. “I imagine I’ll be back in a few hours, Chives,” he said. “Keep the pizza flying.” He went lithely down the gangway, passed quarantine in a whirl of gold and scarlet, and caught an airtaxi to Garth.
The town lay peaceful in its midsummer. Now, at apastron, with Vixen’s atmosphere to filter its radiation, the sun might almost have been Sol: smaller, brighter, but gentle in a blue sky where tall white clouds walked. Fields reached green to the Shaw; a river gleamed; the snowpeaks of the Ridge hovered dreamlike at world’s edge.
Flandry looked up the address he wanted in a public telebooth. He didn’t call ahead, but walked through bustling streets to the little house. Its peaked roof was gold above vine-covered walls.
Kit met him at the door. She stood unmoving a long time. Finally she breathed: “I’d begun to fear you were dead.”
“Came close, a time or two,” said Flandry awkwardly.
She took his arm. Her hand shook. “No,” she said, “y-y-you can’t be killed. You’re too much alive. Oh, come in, darlin’!” She closed the door behind him.
He followed her to the ‘living room and sat down. Sunlight streamed past roses in a trellis window, casting blue shadows over the warm small neatness of furnishings. The girl moved about, dialing the public pneumo for drinks, chattering with frantic gaiety. His eyes found it pleasant to follow her.
“You could have written,” she said, smiling too much to show it wasn’t a reproach. “When the Ardazirho pulled out o’ Vixen, we went back to normal fast. The mailtubes were operatin’ again in a few hours.”
“I was busy,” he said.
“An’ you’re through now?” She gave him a whisky and sat down opposite him, resting her own glass on a bare sun-browned knee.
“I suppose so.” Flandry took out a cigaret. “Until the next trouble comes.”
“I don’t really understan’ what happened,” she said. ” ‘Tis all been one big confusion.”
“Such developments usually are,” he said, glad of a chance to speak impersonally. “Since the Imperium played down all danger in the public mind, it could hardly announce a glorious victory in full detail. But things were simple enough. Once we’d clobbered the Ardazirho chiefs at the nebula, everything fell apart for their planet. The Vixen force withdrew to help defend the mother world, because revolt was breaking out all over their little empire. Walton followed. He didn’t seek a decisive battle, his fleet being less than the total of theirs, but he held them at bay while our psychological warfare teams took Ardazir apart. Another reason for avoiding open combat as much as possible was that we wanted that excellent navy of theirs. When they reconstituted themselves as a loose federation of coequal orbckhs, clans, tribes, and what have you, they were ready enough to accept Terran supremacy—the Pax would protect them against each other!”
“As easy as that.” A scowl passed beneath Kit’s fair hair. “After all they did to us, they haven’t paid a millo. Not that reparations would bring back our dead, but—should they go scot free?”
“Oh, they ransomed themselves, all right.” Flandry’s tone grew somber. He looked through a shielding haze of smoke at roses which nodded in a mild summer wind. “They paid ten times over for all they did at Vixen: in blood and steel and agony, fighting as bravely as any people I’ve ever seen for a cause that was not theirs. We spent them like wastrels. Not one Ardazirho ship in a dozen came home. And yet the poor proud devils think it was a victory!”
“What? You mean—”
“Yes. We joined their navy to ours at Syrax. They were the spearhead of the offensive. It fell within the rules of the game, you see. Technically, Terra hadn’t launched an all-out attack on the Merseian bases. Ardazir, a confederacy subordinate to us, had done so! But our fleet came right behind. The Merseians backed up. They negotiated. Syrax is ours now.” Flandry shrugged. “Merseia can afford it. Terra won’t use the Cluster as an invasion base. It’ll only be a bastion. We aren’t brave enough to do the sensible thing; we’ll keep the peace, and to hell with our grandchildren.” He smoked in short ferocious drags. “Prisoner exchange was a condition. All prisoners, and the Merseians meant all. In plain language, if they couldn’t have Aycharaych back, they wouldn’t withdraw. They got him.”