Brummelmann’s eyes darted back and forth. The breath rasped sour from his mouth.
“The alternative,” Flandry said, “is that I lock you up and assume command.”
“I … no—” Tears started forth, down into the dirty beard. “Please. Too much risk—” Abruptly, slyly, after a breath: “Why, yes. I will. I can find a good hiding spot for you.”
And tell them when they arrive, Flandry thought. I’ve got the upper hand and it’s worthless. What am I to do?
Persis stirred. She approached Brummelmann and took his hands in hers. “Oh, thank you,” she caroled. “Eh? Ho?” He gawped at her.
“I knew you were a real man. Like the old heroes of the League, come back to life.”
“But you—lady—”
“The message doesn’t include a word about me,” she purred. “I don’t feel like sitting in some dark hole.”
“You … you aren’t registered aboard. They will read the list. Won’t they?”
“What if they do? Would I be registered?”
Hope rushed across Flandry. He felt giddy with it. “There are some immediate rewards, you see,” he cackled.
“I—why, I—” Brummelmann straightened. He caught Persis to him. “So there are. Oh, ho, ho! So there are!”
She threw Flandry a look he wished he could forget.
He crept from the packing case. The hold was gut-black. The helmet light of his spacesuit cast a single beam to guide him. Slowly, awkward in armor, he wormed among crates to the hatch.
The ship was quiet. Nothing spoke but powerplant, throttled low, and ventilators. Shadows bobbed grotesque where his beam cut a path. Orbit around Starkad, awaiting clearance to descend—must be. He had survived. The Merseians had passed within meters of him, he heard them talk and curled finger around trigger; but they had gone again and the Rieskessel resumed acceleration. So Persis had kept Brummelmann under control; he didn’t like to think how.
The obvious course was to carry on as he had outlined, let himself be taken planetside and turn himself in. Thus he would be certain to get his message through, the word which he alone bore. (He had wondered whether to give Persis those numbers, but decided against it. A list for her made another chance of getting caught; and her untrained mind might not retain the figures exactly, even in the subconscious for narcosynthesis to bring forth.) But he didn’t know how Enriques would react. The admiral was no robot; he would pass the information on to Terra, one way or another. But he might yield up Flandry. He would most likely not send an armed scout to check and confirm, without authorization from headquarters. Not in the face of Hauksberg’s message, or the command laid on him that he must take no escalating action save in response to a Merseian initiative.
So at best, the obvious course entailed delay, which the enemy might put to good use. It entailed a high probability of Brechdan Ironrede learning how matters stood. Max Abrams (Are you alive yet, my father?) had said, “What helps the other fellow most is knowing what you know.” And, finally, Dominic Flandry wasn’t about to become a God damned pawn again!
He opened the hatch. The corridor stretched empty. Unhuman music squealed from the forecastle. Captain Brummelmann was in no hurry to make planetfall, and his crew was taking the chance to relax.
Flandry sought the nearest lifeboat. If anyone noticed, well, all right, he’d go to Highport. But otherwise, borrowing a boat would be the smallest crime on his docket. He entered the turret, dogged the inner valve, closed his faceplate, and worked the manual controls. Pumps roared, exhausting air. He climbed into the boat and secured her own airlock. The turret’s outer valve opened automatically.
Space blazed at him. He nudged through on the least possible impetus. Starkad was a huge wheel of darkness, rimmed with red, day blue on one edge. A crescent moon glimmered among the stars. Weightlessness caught Flandry in an endless falling.
It vanished as he turned on interior gravity and applied a thrust vector. He spiraled downward. The planetary map was clear in his recollection. He could reach Ujanka without trouble—Ujanka, the city he had saved.