Flandry sat back, crossed shank over knee, inhaled and sipped. “Relax ,” he said. “You’ve nothing to fear from a solitary man, aging and unarmed, when a squad of guards must stand beyond that door. You spoke of us trying to sound you out. That means nothing around the conference table. What is anyone going to do—what can anyone do?—but bandy clichés? However, I’ve a notion that it may be possible for me to sound you out, as man to individual man.” He made an appeasing gesture. “In return, I can tell you things, give you a sense of what the situation is on Terra and inside the Imperium, such as would be unwise to utter in the open.”
“Why should I believe you?” Magnusson demanded hoarsely.
Again Flandry grinned. “Belief isn’t compulsory. Still, my remarks are input, if you’ll listen, and I think you’ll find they accord with facts known to you. What is to keep you from lying to me? Nothing. Indeed, I take it for given that you will, or you’ll refuse to respond, when words veer in inconvenient directions. Usually, though, you should have no .reason not to be frank.” His gray gaze caught Magnusson’s and held on. “It’s lonely where you are, isn’t it, Sir Olaf?” he murmured. “Wouldn’t you like to slack off for this little while and talk ordinary human talk? You see, that’s all I’m after: getting to know you as a man.”
“This is fantastic!”
“No, it’s perfectly logical, if one uses a dash of imagination. You realize I’m not equipped to draw a psychomathematical profile of you, which could help us predict what you’ll do next, on the basis of an evening’s gab. I am not Aycharaych.”
Magnusson started. “Him?”
“Ah,” said Flandry genially, “you’ve heard of the late Aycharaych, perhaps had to do with him, since you’ve spent most of your time on the Merseia-ward frontier. A remarkable being, wasn’t he? Shall we trade recollections of him?”
“Get to the point before I throw you out,” Magnusson rasped.
“Well, you see, Sir Olaf, to us on Terra you’re a rather mysterious figure. The output of your puffery artists we discount. We’ve retrieved all the hard data available on you, of course, and run them through every evaluation program in the catalogue, but scarcely anything has come out except your service record and a few incidentals. Understandable. No matter how much you distinguished yourself, it was in a Navy whose officers alone number in the tens of millions, operating among whole worlds numbering in the tens of thousands. Whatever additional information has appeared about you, in journalistic stories and such over the years, that’s banked on planets to which you deny us access. As for your personality, your inner self, we grope in the dark.”
Magnusson bridled. “And why should I bare my soul to you?”
“I’m not asking you to,” Flandry said. “Tell me as much or as little, as truthful or false, as you like. What I am requesting is simply talk between us—that you and I set hostility aside tonight, relax, be only a couple of careerists yarning together. Why? Because then we on Terra will have a slightly better idea of what to prepare ourselves for. Not militarily but psychologically. You won’t be a faceless monster, you’ll be a human individual, however imperfectly we still see you. Fear clouds judgment, and worst when it’s fear of the unknown.
“Wouldn’t you like to make yourself clear to us? Then maybe a second round of negotiations could mean something. Suppose you’re being defeated, the Imperium might well settle for less than the extermination of you and your honchos. Suppose you’re winning, you might find us more ready to give you what you want, without further struggle.” Flandry dropped his voice. “After all, Sir Olaf, you may be our next Emperor. It would be nice to know beforehand that you’ll be a good one.”
Magnusson raised his brows. “Do you seriously think an evening’s natter can make that kind of difference?”
“Oh, no,” Flandry said. “Especially when it’s off the record. If I reach any conclusions, they’ll be my own, and I wouldn’t look for many folk at home to take my naked word. But I am not without influence. And every so often, a small change does make a big difference. And, mainly, what harm to either of us?”