“But you’d take months, a year or more, to save what you will need!” Targovi exclaimed. “Meanwhile the war goes on.”
She cocked her head and stared at him. “What’s that got to do with us? I mean, sure, it’s terrible, but we can’t do anything about it. Can we?”
Chapter 15
He drew a long breath. “Come aside with me and let us talk,” he said.
Her jubilation died away as she sensed his uneasiness. “Of course.” She tucked an arm beneath his and led him off. “I’ve found a trail out of town, through the woods, where nobody’ll overhear us.” Her smile was a trifle forlorn. “I want to learn what you’ve been up to anyway, and how you figure to stay out of jail, and, oh, everything.”
“You shall, as much as is safe for you to know.”
She bridled. “Now wait a minute! Either you trust me or you don’t. I’ve let you rush me along this far, and conned Axor for you, because you didn’t have a chance to explain. Or so you claimed. Not any more, fellow.”
He raised his ears. “Ah, you are your father’s child—and your mother’s—eh, little friend? … Well, you leave me no choice. Not that I had much left me, after today. My thought was that you, being an honest young person, could best play the part I need played if you believed it was genuine.”
“Hmf! You don’t know me as well as you think.” Diana frowned. “We might have to shade the truth for Axor. I’ll hate that, but we might have to.”
“Did I indeed underestimate your potential, all these years?” Targovi purred.
They said no more until they were well into the forest east of town. The trail ran along the river, a short way in from the high bank, so that water could be seen agleam beyond tree boles and canebrakes. Underneath canopies of darkling leaves, sun-flecked shadow was somewhat cooler than air out in the open, though still subtropical. It was full of unfamiliar odors, sweet, rank, spicy, or indescribable in Anglic or Toborko. Tiny, pale wings fluttered about. No songs resounded, but now and then curious whistles and glissandos went among the boughs above. The sense of ruthless fecundity was overwhelming. You understood what a war it had been, and was yet, to keep terrestroid life going on this—unusually Terra-like—world.
Diana remarked as much. “Makes you wonder how firm a grip we’ve got on any place, doesn’t it?” she added. Her tone was hushed. “On our whole Empire, or civilization itself.”
“The Merseians have long been trying to pry us loose from existence,” Targovi snarled.
She gave him a troubled glance. “They can’t be that bad. Can they? It’s natural for a Tigery to think of them as purely evil. They’d’ve let your whole race, and the Seafolk’s, die with Starkad. That plan of theirs depended on it. Only, well, it wasn’t ‘they/ not their tens of billions plottin’ together, it was their government—a few key people in it, nobody else havin’ any inklin’.”
“Granted. I overspoke myself. Humans are too many, too widespread for extermination. But they can be diminished, scattered, conquered, rendered powerless. That is the Mer-seian aim.”
“Why?” she wondered in hurt. “A whole galaxy, a whole universe, a technology that could make every last livin’ bein’ rich—why are we and they locked in this senseless feud?”
“Because both our sides have governments,” Targovi said, calming down.
Presently: “Yet Terra’s did rescue enough of my people that we have a chance to survive. I am not ungrateful, nor unaware of where Imhotep’s best interest lies. I actually dream of serving Terra in a wider field than any one planet. What a grand game of play!”
“I’d sure like to get out there too.” Diana shook herself. “S’pose we stop talkin’ like world-weary eighteen-year-olds—”
“Sound counsel, coming from a seventeen-year-old.”
She laughed before she went on: “All right, down to business. You’re a secret agent of the Navy, no matter how low in grade. You’re onto somethin’ havin’ to do with the fight for the throne. You need some kind of help from Axor and me. That’s about the whole of what I know.”