A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows Page 5

  Flandry nodded. "Aye, sir. You can't give any single item more than a

  glance. And even if you could pay full attention, you can't send the big

  clumsy Imperial machine barging into Tauria, disrupting our whole

  arrangement there, on the basis of a few accusations. Especially in your

  absence."

  "Yes. I must go. If we don't reorder Sector Spica, the barbarians will

  soon ruin it. But meanwhile Tauria may explode. You see how an uprising

  in Sector Arcturus would be the right distraction for a traitor

  Dennitzan before he rebels too."

  "Won't Intelligence mount a larger operation?"

  "Ja, Ja, Ja. Though the Corps is still in poor shape, after wars and

  weedings. Also, it has much other business. And ... Dominic, just the

  Corps by itself is too huge for me to know, for me to control as I

  should. I need--I am not sure what I need or if it can be had."

  Flandry foreknew: "You want me to take a hand, sir?"

  "Yes." The wild boar eyes were sighted straight on him. "In your olden

  style. A roving commission, and you report directly to me.

  Plenipotentiary authority."

  Flandry's pulse broke into a canter. He kept his tone level. "Quite a

  solo, sir."

  "Co-opt. Hire. Bribe. Threaten. Whatever you see fit."

  "The odds will stay long against my finding out anything useful--at

  least, anything the Corps can't, quicker and better."

  "You are not good at modesty," Hans said. "Are you unwilling?"

  "N-n-no, sir." Surprised, Flandry realized he spoke truth. This could

  prove interesting. In fact, he knew damn well it would, for he had

  already involved himself in the affair. His motivation was half

  curiosity, half kindliness--he thought at the time--though probably,

  down underneath, the carnivore which had been asleep in him these past

  three years had roused, pricked up its ears, snuffed game scent on a

  night breeze. Was that always my real desire? Not to chase down enemies

  of the Empire so I could go on having fun in it, but to have fun chasing

  them down?

  No matter. The blood surged. "I'm happy to accept, sir, provided you

  don't expect much. Uh, my authority, access to funds and secret data and

  whatnot ... better be kept secret itself."

  "Right." Hans knocked the dottle from his pipe, a ringing noise through

  a moment's silence. "Is this why you refused admiral's rank? You knew

  sneaking off someday on a mission would be easier for a mere captain."

  Flandry shrugged. "If you'll tip the word to--better be none less than

  Kheraskov--I'll contact him as soon as may be and made arrangements."

  "Have you any idea how you will begin?" Hans asked, relaxing a trifle.

  "Well, I don't know. Perhaps with that alleged Dennitzan agent. What

  became of ... her, did you say?"

  "How can I tell? I saw a precis of many reports, remember. What

  difference, after the 'probe wrung her dry?"

  "Sometimes individuals count, sir." Excitement in Flandry congealed to

  grimness. I should think the fact she's a niece of the Gospodar--a fact

  available in the material on her that my son could freely scan from a

  data bank--would be worth mentioning to the Emperor. I should think such

  a hostage would not be sold for a slave, forced into whoredom except for

  the chance that I learned about her when she was offered for sale.

  Better not tell Hans. He'd only be distracted from the million things

  he's got to do. And anyhow ... something strange here. I prefer to keep

  my mouth shut and my options open.

  "Proceed as you wish," the other said. "I know you won't likely get far.

  But I can trust you will run a strong race."

  His glance went to the picture of the young man. His face sagged.

  Flandry could well-nigh read his mind: Ach, Otto! If you had not been

  killed--if I could bring you back, yes, even though I must trade for you

  dull Dietrich and scheming Gerhart both--we would have an heir to trust.

  The Emperor straightened in his seat. "Very well," he rapped.

  "Dismissed."

  The festival wore on. Toward morning, Flandry and Chunderban Desai found

  themselves alone.

  The officer would have left sooner, were it not for his acquired job.

  Now he seemed wisest if he savored sumptuousness, admired the centuried

  treasures of static and fluid art which the palace housed, drank noble

  wines, nibbled on delicate foods, conversed with witty men, danced with

  delicious girls, finally brought one of these to a pergola he knew

  (unlocked, screened by jasmine vines) and made love. He might never get

  the chance again. After she bade him a sleepy goodbye, he felt like

  having a nightcap. The crowd had grown thin. He recognized Desai, fell

  into talk, ended in a small garden.

  Its base was cantilevered from a wall, twenty meters above a courtyard

  where a fountain sprang. The waters, full of dissolved fluorescents,

  shone under ultraviolet illumination in colors more deep and pure than

  flame. Their tuned splashing resounded from catchbowls to make an

  eldritch music. Otherwise the two men on their bench had darkness and

  quiet. Flowers sweetened an air gone slightly cool. The moon was long

  down; Venus and a dwindling number of stars gleamed in a sky fading from

  black to purple, above an ocean coming all aglow.

  "No, I am not convinced the Emperor does right to depart," Desai said.

  The pudgy little old man's hair glimmered white as his tunic;

  chocolate-hued face and hands were nearly invisible among shadows. He

  puffed on a cigarette in a long ivory holder. "Contrariwise, the move

  invites catastrophe."

  "But to let the barbarians whoop around at will--" Flandry sipped his

  cognac and drew on his cigar, fragrances first rich, then pungent. He'd

  wanted to end on a relaxing topic. Desai, who had served the Imperium in

  many executive capacities on many different planets, owned a hoard of

  reminiscences which made him worth cultivating. He was on Terra for a

  year, teaching at the Diplomatic Academy, before he retired to

  Ramanujan, his birthworld.

  The military situation--specifically, Hans' decision to go--evidently

  bothered him too much for pleasantries. "Oh, yes, that entire frontier

  needs restructuring," he said. "Not simple reinforcement. New

  administrations, new laws, new economics: ideally, the foundations of an

  entire new society among the human inhabitants. However, his Majesty

  should leave that task to a competent viceroy and staff whom he grants

  extraordinary powers."

  "There's the problem," Flandry pointed out. "Who's both competent and

  trustworthy enough, aside from those who're already up to their armpits

  in alligators elsewhere?"

  "If he has no better choice," Desai said, "his Majesty should let the

  Spican sector be ravaged--should even let it be lost, in hopes of

  regaining the territory afterward--anything, rather than absent himself

  for months. What ultimate good can he accomplish yonder if meanwhile the

  Imperium is taken from him? The best service he can render the Empire is

  simply to keep a grip on its heart. Else the civil wars begin again."

  "I fear you exaggerate," Flandry said, tho
ugh he recalled how Desai was

  always inclined to understate things. And Dennitzans on Diomedes ... "We

  seem to've pacified ourselves fairly well. Besides, why refer to civil

  wars in the plural?"

  "Have you forgotten McCormac's rebellion, Sir Dominic?"

  Scarcely, seeing I was involved. Flandry winced at a memory. Lost

  Kathryn, as well as the irregular nature of his actions at the time,

  made him glad the details were still unpublic. "No. But that was, uh,

  twenty-two years ago. And amounted to what? An admiral who revolted

  against Josip's sector governor for personal reasons. True, this meant

  he had to try for the crown. The Imperium could never have pardoned him.

  But he was beaten, and Josip died in bed." Probably poisoned, to be

  sure.

  "You consider the affair an isolated incident?" Desai challenged in his

  temperate fashion. "Allow me to remind you, please--I know you

  know--shortly afterward I found myself the occupation commissioner of

  McCormac's home globe, Aeneas, which had spearheaded the uprising. We

  came within an angstrom there of getting a messianic religion that might

  have burst into space and torn the Empire in half."

  Flandry took a hard swallow from his snifter and a hard pull on his

  cigar. Well had he studied the records of that business, after he

  encountered Aycharaych who had engineered it.

  "The thirteen following years--seeming peace inside the Empire, till

  Josip's death--they are no large piece of history, are they?" Desai

  pursued. "Especially if we bear in mind that conflicts have causes. A

  war, including a civil war, is the flower on a plant whose seed went

  into the ground long before ... and whose roots reach widely, and will

  send up fresh growths, ... No, Sir Dominic, as a person who has read and

  reflected for most of a lifetime on this subject, I tell you we are well

  into our anarchic phase. The best we can do is minimize the damage, and

  hold outside enemies off until we win back to a scarred kind of unity."

  " 'Our' anarchic phase?" Flandry questioned.

  Desai misheard his emphasis. "Or our interregnum, or whatever you wish

  to call it. Oh, we may not always fight over who shall be Emperor; we

  can find plenty of bones to contend about. And we may enjoy stretches of

  peace and relative prosperity. I hoped Hans would provide us such a

  respite."

  "No, wait, you speak as if this is something we have to go through,

  willy-nilly."

  "Yes. For about eighty more years, I think--though of course modern

  technology, nonhuman influences, the sheer scale of interstellar

  dominion may affect the time-span. Basically, however, yes, a universal

  state--and the Terran Empire is the universal state of Technic

  civilization--only gives a respite from the wars and horrors which

  multiply after the original breakdown. Its Pax is no more than a

  subservience enforced at swordpoint, or today at blaster point. Its

  competent people become untrustworthy from their very competence; anyone

  who can make a decision may make one the Imperium does not like.

  Incompetence grows with the growing suspiciousness and centralization.

  Defense and civil functions alike begin to disintegrate. What can that

  provoke except rebellion? So this universal state of ours has ground

  along for a space of generations, from bad to worse, until now--"

  "The Long Night?" Flandry shivered a bit in the gentle air.

  "I think not quite yet. If we follow precedent, the Empire will rise

  again ... if you can label as 'rise' the centralized divine autocracy we

  have coming. To be sure, if the thought of such a government does not

  cheer you, then remember that that second peace of exhaustion will not

  last either. In due course will come the final collapse."

  "How do you know?" Flandry demanded.

  "The cycle fills the history, yes, the archeology of this whole planet

  we are sitting on. Old China and older Egypt each went thrice through

  the whole sorry mess. The Western civilization to which ours is

  affiliated rose originally from the same kind of thing, that Roman

  Empire some of our rulers have liked to hark back to for examples of

  glory. Oh, we too shall have our Diocletian; but scarcely a hundred

  years after his reconstruction, the barbarians were camping in Rome

  itself and making emperors to their pleasure. My own ancestral

  homeland--but there is no need for a catalogue of forgotten nations. For

  a good dozen cases we have chronicles detailed to the point of nausea;

  all in all, we can find over fifty examples just in the dust of this one

  world.

  "Growth, until wrong decisions bring breakdown; then ever more ferocious

  wars, until the Empire brings the Pax; then the dissolution of that Pax,

  its reconstitution, its disintegration forever, and a dark age until a

  new society begins in the ruins. Technic civilization started on that

  road when the Polesotechnic League changed from a mutual-aid

  organization of free entrepreneurs to a set of cartels. Tonight we are

  far along the way."

  "You've discovered this yourself?" Flandry asked, not as skeptically as

  he could have wished he were able to.

  "Oh, no, no," Desai said. "The basic analysis was made a thousand years

  ago. But it's not comfortable to live with. Prevention of breakdown, or

  recovery from it, calls for more thought, courage, sacrifice than humans

  have yet been capable of exercising for generation after generation.

  Much easier first to twist the doctrine around, use it for

  rationalization instead of rationality; then ignore it; finally suppress

  it. I found it in certain archives, but you realize I am talking to you

  in confidence. The Imperium would not take kindly to such a description

  of itself."

  "Well--" Flandry drank again. "Well, you may be right. And total

  pessimism does have a certain bracing quality. If we're doomed to tread

  out the measure, we can try to do so gracefully."

  "There is no absolute inevitability." Desai puffed for a minute, his

  cigarette end a tiny red pulsar. "I suppose, even this late in the game,

  we could start afresh if we had the means--more importantly, the will.

  But in actuality, the development is often aborted by foreign conquest.

  An empire in the anarchic phase is especially tempting and especially

  prone to suffer invaders. Osmans, Afghans, Moguls, Manchus, Spaniards,

  British--they and those like them became overlords of cultures different

  from their own, in that same way.

  "Beyond our borders, the Merseians are the true menace. Not a barbarian

  rabble merely filling a vacuum we have left by our own political

  machinations--not a realistic Ythri which sees us as its natural

  ally--not a pathetic Gorrazani remnant--but Merseia. We harass and

  thwart the Roidhunate everywhere, because we dare not let it grow too

  strong. Besides eliminating us as a hindrance to its dreams, think what

  a furtherance our conquest would be!

  "That's why I dread the consequences of the Emperor's departure. Staying

  home, working to buttress the government and armed force, ready to stamp

  fast on every attempt at insu
rrection, he might keep us united,

  uninvadable, for the rest of his life. Without his presence--I don't

  know."

  "The Merseians would have to be prepared to take quick advantage of any

  revolt," Flandry argued. "Assuming you're right about your historical

  pattern, are they aware of it? How common is it?"

  "True, we don't have the knowledge to say how far it may apply to

  nonhumans, if at all," Desai admitted. "We should. In fact, it was

  Merseia, not ourselves, that set me on this research--for the Merseians

  too must have their private demons, and think what a weapon it would be

  for our diplomacy to have a generalized mechanic for them as well as

  us!"

  "Hm?" said Flandry, surprised afresh. "Are you implying perhaps they

  already are decadent? That's not what one usually hears."

  "No, it isn't. But what is decadence to a nonhuman? I hope to do more

  than read sutras in my retirement; I hope to apply my experience and my

  studies to thought about just such problems." The old man sighed. "Of

  necessity, this assumes the Empire will not fall prey to its foes before

  I've made some progress. That may be an unduly optimistic assumption ...

  considering what a head start they have in the Roidhunate where it comes

  to understanding us."

  "Are you implying they know this theory of human history which you've

  been outlining to me?"

  "Yes, I fear that at least a few minds among them are all too familiar

  with it. For example, after considering the episode for many years, I

  think that when Aycharaych tried to kindle a holy war of man against

  man, starting on Aeneas, he knew precisely what he was doing."