“Well, sir—I mean, I can’t say. I wasn’t around, sir. She told you about our escape from Merseia?”
“We had a private interview at her request. Her account was sketchy. But it does tend to bear out your claims.”
“Sir, I know what the Merseians are planning, and it’s monstrous. I can prove—”
“You will need considerable proof, Ensign,” Enriques said bleakly. “Lord Hauksberg’s communication laid capital charges against you.”
Flandry felt nervousness slide from him. He doubled his fists and cried, with tears of rage stinging his eyes: “Sir, I’m entitled to a court-martial. By my own people. And you’d have let the Merseians have me!”
The lean visage beneath his hardly stirred. The voice was flat. “Regulations provide that personnel under charges are to be handed over to their assigned superiors if this is demanded. The Empire is too big for any other rule to work. By virtue of being a nobleman, Lord Hauksberg holds a reserve commission, equivalent rank of captain, which was automatically activated when Commander Abrams was posted to him. Until you are detached from your assignment, he is your senior commanding officer. He declared in proper form that state secrets and his mission on behalf of the Imperium have been endangered by you. The Merseians will return you to him for examination. It is true that courts-martial must be held on an Imperial ship or planet, but the time for this may be set by him within a one-year limit.”
“Will be never! Sir, they’ll scrub my brain and kill me!”
“Restrain yourself, Ensign.”
Flandry gulped. Dragoika bared teeth but stayed put. “May I hear the exact charges against me, sir?” Flandry asked.
“High treason,” Enriques told him. “Mutiny. Desertion. Kidnapping. Threat and menace. Assault and battery. Theft. Insubordination. Shall I recite the entire bill? I thought not. You have subsequently added several items. Knowing that you were wanted, you did not surrender yourself. You created dissension between the Empire and an associated country. This, among other things, imperils his Majesty’s forces on Starkad. At the moment, you are resisting arrest. Ensign, you have a great deal to answer for.”
“I’ll answer to you, sir, not to … to those damned gatortails. Nor to a Terran who’s so busy toadying to them he doesn’t care what happens to his fellow human beings. My God, sir, you let Merseians search Imperial ships!”
“I had my orders,” Enriques replied.
“But Hauksberg, you rank him!”
“Formally and in certain procedural matters. He holds a direct Imperial mandate, though. It empowers him to negotiate temporary agreements with Merseia, which then become policy determinants.”
Flandry heard the least waver in those tones. He pounced. “You protested your orders, sir. Didn’t you?”
“I sent a report on my opinion to frontier HQ. No reply has yet been received. In any event, there are only six Merseian men-of-war here, none above Planet class, plus some unarmed cargo carriers told off to help them.” Enriques smacked hand on knee. “Why am I arguing with you? At the very least, if you wanted to see me, you could have stayed aboard the Rieskessel.”
“And afterward been given to the Merseians, sir?”
“Perhaps. The possibility should not have influenced you. Remember your oath.”
Flandry made a circle around the room. His hands writhed behind his back. Dragoika laid fingers on sword hilt. “No,” he said to her in Kursovikian. “No matter what happens.”
He spun on his heel and looked straight at Enriques. “Sir, I had another reason. What I brought from Merseia is a list of numbers. You’d undoubtedly have passed them on. But they do need a direct check, to make sure I’m right about what they mean. And if I am right, whoever goes to look may run into a fight. A space battle. Escalation, which you’re forbidden to practice. You couldn’t order such a mission the way things have been set up to bind you. You’d have to ask for the authority. And on what basis? On my say-so, me, a baby ex-cadet, a mutineer, a traitor. You can imagine how they’d buckpass. At best, a favorable decision wouldn’t come for weeks. Months, more likely. Meanwhile the war would drag on. Men would get killed. Men like my buddy, Jan van Zuyl, with his life hardly begun, with forty or fifty years of Imperial service in him.”