“Why not?”
“We might get captured alive. They’d probe you and find you knew. If they didn’t murder you out of hand, they’d wipe your brain—which to my taste is worse.”
He took a lighter from his pocket and burned every paper on the desk and swept the ashes into a disposal. Afterward he shook himself, like a dog that has come near drowning, and went to her.
“Sorry,” he smiled. “Kind of a shock for me there. But I’m all right now. And I really will pay attention to you, from here on in.”
She enjoyed the rest of the voyage, even after she had identified the change in him, the thing which had gone and would never quite come back. Youth.
The detector alarm buzzed. Persis drew a gasp and caught Flandry’s arm. He tore her loose, reaching for the main hyper-drive switch.
But he didn’t pull it, returning them to normal state and kinetic velocity. His knuckles stood white on the handle. A pulse fluttered in his throat. “I forgot what I’d already decided,” he said. “We don’t have an especially good detector. If she’s a warship, we were spotted some time ago.”
“But this time she can’t be headed straight at us.” Her tone was fairly level. She had grown somewhat used to being hunted. “We have a big sphere to hide in.”
“Uh-huh. We’ll try that if necessary. But first let’s see which way yonder fellow is bound.” He changed course. Stars wheeled in the viewports, otherwise there was no sensation. “If we can find a track on which the intensity stays constant, we’ll be running parallel to him and he isn’t trying to intercept.” Saxo burned dead ahead. “S’pose he’s going there—”
Minutes crawled. Flandry let himself relax. His coverall was wet. “Whew! What I hoped. Destination, Saxo. And if he’s steered on a more or less direct line, as is probable, then he’s come from the Empire.”
He got busy, calculating, grumbling about rotten civilian instrumentation. “Yes, we can meet him. Let’s go.”
“But he could be Merseian,” Persis objected. “He needn’t have come from a Terran planet.”
“Chance we take. The odds aren’t bad. He’s slower than us, which suggests a merchant vessel.” Flandry set the new path, leaned back and stretched. A grin spread across his features.
“My dilemma’s been solved for me. We’re off to Starkad.”
“Why? How?”
“Didn’t mention it before, for fear of raising false hopes in you. When I’d rather raise something else. But I came here first, instead of directly to Saxo or Betelgeuse, because this is the way Terran ships pass, carrying men and supplies to Starkad and returning home. If we can hitch a ride … you see?”
Eagerness blossomed in her and died again. “Why couldn’t we have found one going home?”
“Be glad we found any whatsoever. Besides, this way we deliver our news a lot sooner.” Flandry rechecked his figures. “We’ll be in call range in an hour. If he should prove to be Merseian, chances are we can outspeed and lose him.” He rose. “I decree a good stiff drink.”
Persis held her hands up. They trembled. “We do need something for our nerves,” she agreed, “but there are psycho-chemicals aboard.”
“Whisky’s more fun. Speaking of fun, we have an hour.”
She rumpled his hair. “You’re impossible.”
“No,” he said. “Merely improbable.”
The ship was the freighter Rieskessel, registered on Nova Germania but operating out of the Imperial frontier world Irumclaw. She was a huge, potbellied, ungainly and unkempt thing, with a huge, potbellied, ungainly and unkempt captain. He bellowed a not quite sober welcome when Flandry and Persis came aboard.
“Oh, ho, ho, hoi Humans! So soon I did not expect seeing humans. And never this gorgeous.” One hairy hand engulfed Flandry’s, the other chucked Persis under the chin. “Otto Brummelmann is me.”
Flandry looked past the bald, wildly bearded head, down the passageway from the airlock. Corroded metal shuddered to the drone of an ill-tuned engine. A pair of multi-limbed beings with shiny blue integuments stared back from their labor; they were actually swabbing by hand. The lights were reddish orange, the air held a metallic tang and was chilly enough for his breath to smoke. “Are you the only Terran, sir?” he asked.