“No,” said Flandry, as softly as if he walked on fulminate.

  Genseng swept one chalky hand at the panel. “It is for me to see the error or the failure on these dials, and correct it in time with these master controls. I have kept track. Three hundred and twenty-seven times since I first became a duty officer, I have saved a batch from spoiling. Three hundred and twenty-seven million human lives are owed me. Can you claim as much, outworlder?”

  “No.”

  “They owe more than their lives, though,” said Genseng somberly. “What use is life, if all that life is for should be lost? Better return the borrowed force at once, unstained, to the most high gods, than dirty it with wretchedness like your own, outworlder. Unan Besar owes its purity to me and those like me. The lives we have given, we can take again, to save that purity.”

  Flandry pointed to the black switch and asked very low, “What does that connect to?”

  “There is a nuclear bomb buried in the foundations of this castle,” Genseng breathed. “Any duty officer can detonate it from his station. All are sworn to do so, if the holy mission should ever fail.”

  Flandry risked cynicism: “Though of course a reserve stock of medicine, and enough spaceships for Biocontrol to escape in, are kept available.”

  “There are those who would do such a thing,” sighed Genseng. “Even here the soul-infection lingers. But let them desert, then, to their own damnation. I can at least save most of my people.”

  He turned back to his panel with a harsh movement. “Go!” he yelled.

  Bandang actually ran back up the stairs.

  Warouw came last, smiling. Bandang mopped his face, which poured sweat. “Really!” puffed the governor. “Really! I do think…honorable retirement…Colleague Genseng does appear to, ah, feel his years—”

  “You know the Law, Tuan,” said Warouw unctuously. “No one who wears the Brand may be deposed, except by vote of his peers. You couldn’t get enough votes to do it, and you would anger the whole extremist faction.” He turned to Flandry. “Genseng is a somewhat violent case, I admit. But there are enough others who feel like him, to guarantee that this building would go sky-high if Biocontrol ever seemed seriously threatened.”

  Flandry nodded. He’d been a bit skeptical of such claims before. Now he wasn’t.

  “I don’t know what good this has done,” said Bandang softly.

  “Perhaps the Captain and I might best discuss that,” bowed Warouw.

  “Perhaps. Good day, then, Captain.” Bandang raised one fat hand in a patronizing gesture. “I trust we shall meet again…ah…elsewhere than the cage? Of course, of course! Good day!” He wobbled quickly down the catwalk.

  Warouw conducted Flandry at a slower pace. They didn’t speak for minutes, until they had turned back their flexisuits and were again in the garden and the blessed sane sunlight.

  “What do you actually want to convince me of, Warouw?” asked the Terran then.

  “Of the truth,” said the other man. Banter had dropped from him; he looked straight ahead, and his mouth was drawn downward.

  “Which is short-sighted self-interest utilizing fanaticism to perpetuate itself…and fanaticism running away with self-interest,” said Flandry in a sharp tone.

  Warouw shrugged. “You take the viewpoint of a different culture.”

  “And of most of your own people. You know that as well as I. Warouw, what have you to gain by the status quo? Are your money, your fancy lodging, your servants, that important to you? You’re an able chap. You could gain all you now have, and a lot more besides, in the modern galactic society.”

  Warouw glanced back at the two Guards and answered softly: “What would I be there, another little politician making dirty little compromises—or Nias Warouw whom all men fear?”

  He jumped at once to a discourse on willow cultivation, pointing out with expert knowledge the local evolution of the original imported stock, until they were again at Flandry’s room.

  The door opened. “Go in and rest a while,” said Warouw. “Then think whether to cooperate freely or not.”

  “You’ve been harping for some time on the need for my cooperation,” said Flandry. “But you’ve not made it clear what you want of me.”

  “First, I want to know for certain why you came here,” Warouw met his eyes unblinkingly. “If you do not resist it, a light hypnoprobing will get that out of you quite easily. Then you must help me prepare false evidence of your own accidental death, and head off any Terran investigation. Thereafter you will be appointed my special assistant—for life. You will advise me on how to modernize the Guard Corps and perpetuate this world’s isolation.” He smiled with something like shyness. “I think we might both enjoy working together. We are not so unlike, you and I.”

  “Suppose I don’t cooperate,” said Flandry.

  Warouw flushed and snapped: “Then I must undertake a deep hypnoprobing and drag your information out of you. I confess I have had very little practice with the instrument since acquiring it. Even in skilled hands, you know, the hypnoprobe at full strength is apt to destroy large areas of cerebral cortex. In unskilled hands—But I will at least get some information out of you before your mind evaporates!”

  He bowed. “I shall expect your decision tomorrow. Good rest.”

  The door closed behind him.

  Flandry paced in silence. He would have traded a year of life for a pack of Terran cigarettes, but he hadn’t even been supplied with locals. It was like a final nail driven into his coffin.

  What to do?

  Cooperate? Yield to the probe? But that meant allowing his mind to ramble in free association, under the stimulus of the machine. Warouw would hear everything Flandry knew about the Empire in general and Naval Intelligence in particular. Which was one devil of a lot.

  In itself, that would be harmless—if the knowledge stayed on this planet. But it was worth too much. A bold man like Warouw was certain to exploit it. The Merseians, for instance, would gladly establish a non-interfering protectorate over Unan Besar—it would only tie down a cruiser or two—in exchange for the information about Terran defenses which Warouw could feed them in shrewd driblets. Or better, perhaps, Warouw could take a ship himself and search out those barbarians with spacecraft Flandry knew of: who would stuff the vessel of Warouw with loot from Terran planets which he could tell them how to raid.

  Either way, the Long Night was brought that much closer.

  Of course, Dominic Flandry would still be alive, as a sort of domesticated animal. He couldn’t decide if it was worth it or not.

  Thunder rolled in the hills. The sun sank behind clouds which boiled up to cover the sky. A few fat raindrops smote a darkening garden.

  I wonder if I get anything more to eat today, thought Flandry in his weariness.

  He hadn’t turned on the lights. His room was nearly black. When the door opened, he was briefly dazzled. The figure that stepped through was etched against corridor illumination like a troll.

  Flandry retreated, fists clenched. After a moment he realized it was only a Biocontrol uniform, long robe with flaring shoulders. But did they want him already? His heart thuttered in anticipation.

  “Easy, there,” said a vaguely familiar voice.

  Lightning split heaven. In an instant’s white glare, Flandry made out shaven head, glowing brand, and the broken face of Kemul the mugger.

  -12-

  He sat down. His legs wouldn’t hold him.

  “Where in the nine foul hells is your light switch?” grumbled the basso above him. “We’ve little enough time. They may spare you if we are caught, but the cage for Kemul. Quick!”

  The Terran got shakily back on his feet. “Stay away from the window,” he said. A dim amazement was in him, that he could speak without stuttering. “I’d hate for some passerby to see us alone together. He might misunderstand the purity of our motives. Ah.” Light burst from the ceiling.

  Kemul took a rich man’s garments from under his robe and tossed them on the bed: sarong, curly-toed slippers, blouse, vest, turban with an enormous plume. “Best we can do,” he said. “Biocontrol disguise and a painted brand would not go for you. Your scalp would be paler than your face, and your face itself sticking out for all to see. But some great merchant or landowner, come here to talk of some policy matter— Also, speaking earnestly with you as we go, Kemul will not have to observe so many fine points of politeness and rule which he never learned.”

  Flandry tumbled into the clothes. “How’d you get in here at all?” he demanded.

  Kemul’s thick lips writhed upward. “That is another reason we must hurry, you. Two dead Guards outside.” He opened the door, stooped, and yanked the corpses in. Their necks were broken with one karate chop apiece. A firearm would have made too much noise, Flandry thought in a daze. Even a cyanide needler with a compressed air cartridge would have to be drawn and fired, which might give time for a warning to be yelled. But a seeming Biocontrol man could walk right past the sentries, deep in meditation, and kill them in one second as they saluted him. That ability of Kemul’s must have counted for enough that his cohorts (who?) sent him in rather than somebody of less noticeable appearance.

  “But how’d you get this far, I mean?” Flandry persisted a trifle wildly.

  “Landed outside the hangar, as they all do. Said to the attendant, Kemul was here from Pegunungan Gradjugang on urgent business and might have to depart again in minutes. Walked into the building, cornered a Guard alone in a hall, wrung from him where you were being kept, threw the body out a window into some bushes. Once or twice a white-robe hailed Kemul, but he said he was in great haste and went on.”

  Flandry whistled. It would have been a totally impossible exploit on any other world he had ever seen. The decadence of Biocontrol and its Guard Corps was shown naked by this fact of an enemy walking into their ultimate stronghold without so much as being questioned. To be sure, no one in all the history of Unan Besar had ever dreamed of such a raid; but still—

  But still it was a fantastic gamble, with the odds against it mounting for each second of delay.

  “I sometimes think we overwork Pegunungan Gradjugang.” Flandry completed his ensemble. “Have a weapon for me?”

  “Here.” Kemul drew out of his robe a revolver as antiquated as the one liberated from Pradjung (how many eons ago?). The same gesture showed his Terran blaster in an arm sheath. “Hide it. No needless fighting.”

  “Absolutely! You wouldn’t believe how meek my intentions are. Let’s go.”

  The hall was empty. Flandry and Kemul went down it, not too fast, mumbling at each other as if deep in discourse. At a cross-corridor they met a technician, who bowed his head to Kemul’s insigne but couldn’t entirely hide astonishment. The technician continued the way they had come. If he passed Flandry’s closed door and happened to know that two Guards were supposed to be outside—

  The hall debouched in a spacious common room. Between its pillars and gilded screens, a dozen or so off-duty Biocontrol people sat smoking, reading, playing games, watching a taped dance program. Flandry and Kemul started across toward the main entrance. A middle-aged man with a Purity Control symbol on his robe intercepted them.

  “I beg your pardon, Colleague,” he bowed. “I have not had the pleasure of meeting you before, though I thought I knew all full initiates.” His eyes were lively with interest. A tour of duty here must be a drab chore for most personnel, any novelty welcomed. “And I had no idea we were entertaining a civilian of such obvious importance.”

  Flandry bent his own head above respectfully folded hands, hoping the plume would shadow his face enough. A couple of men, cross-legged above a chessboard, looked up in curiosity and kept on looking.

  “Ameti Namang from beyond the Tindjil Ocean,” growled Kemul. “I just came with Proprietor Tasik here. Been on special duty for years.”

  “Er… your accent…and I am sure I would remember your face from anywhere—”

  Having sidled around to Kemul’s other side, so that the giant cut off the view of him, Flandry exclaimed in a shocked stage whisper: “I beg you, desist! Can’t you tell when a man’s been in an accidental explosion?” He took his companion’s elbow. “Come, we mustn’t keep Tuan Bandang waiting.”

  The stares which followed him were like darts in his back.

  Rain beat heavily on the roof of the verandah beyond. Lamplight glowed along garden paths, but even on this round-the-clock planet they weren’t frequented in such weather. Flandry glanced behind, at the slowly closing main doors. “In about thirty seconds,” he muttered, “our friend will either shrug off his puzzlement with a remark about the inscrutable ways of his superiors…or will start seriously adding two and two. Come on.”

  They went down the staircase. “Damn!” said Flandry. “You forgot to bring rain capes. Think a pair of drowned rats can reclaim your aircar?”

  “With a blaster, if need be,” snapped Kemul. “Stop complaining. You’ve at least been given a chance to die cleanly. It was bought for you at the hazard of two other lives.”

  “Two?”

  “It wasn’t Kemul’s idea, this, or his wish.”

  Flandry fell silent. Rain struck his face and turned his clothes sodden. The path was like a treadmill, down which he walked endlessly between wet hedges, under goblin lamps. He heard thunder again, somewhere over the jungle.

  Sudden as a blow, the garden ended. Concrete glimmered in front of a long hemicylindrical building. “Here’s where everybody lands,” grunted Kemul. He led the way to the office door. A kilted civilian emerged and bobbed the head to him. “Where’s my car?” said Kemul.

  “So soon, tuan? You were only gone a short while—”

  “I told you I would be. And you garaged my car anyhow? You officious dolt!” Kemul shoved with a brutal hand. The attendant picked himself up and hurried to the hangar doors.

  Whistles skirled through the rain-rushing. Flandry looked back. Mountainous over all bowers and pools, the Central blinked windows to life like opening eyes. The attendant paused to gape. “Get moving!” roared Kemul.

  “Yes, tuan. Yes, tuan.” A switch was pulled, the doors slid open. “But what is happening?”

  I don’t know, Flandry thought. Maybe my absence was discovered. Or else somebody found a dead Guard. Or our friend in the common room got suspicious and called for a checkup. Or any of a dozen other possibilities. The end result is still the same.

  He slipped a hand inside his blouse and rested it on the butt of his gun.

  Lights went on in the hangar. It was crowded with aircars belonging to men serving their turns here. The attendant stared idiotically around, distracted by whistles and yells and sound of running feet. “Now, let’s see, tuan, which one is yours? I don’t rightly recall, I don’t—”

  Four or five Guards emerged from the garden path into the lamplight of the field. “Get the car, Kemul,” rapped Flandry. He drew his revolver and slipped behind the shelter of a door. The attendant’s jaw dropped. He let out a squeak and tried to run. Kemul’s fist smote at the base of his skull. The attendant flew in an arc, hit, skidded across concrete, and lay without breathing.

  “That was unnecessary,” said Flandry. It wrenched within him: Always the innocent get hurt worst.

  The mugger was already among the cars. The squad of Guards broke into a run. Flandry stepped from behind his door long enough to fire several times. One man spun around on his heel, went over backward, and raised himself on all fours with blood smeared over his chest. The others scattered. And they bawled for help.

  Flandry took another peek. The opposite side of the landing field was coming alive with Guards. Through their shouts and the breaking of branches under their feet, through the rain, boomed Warouw’s voice: “Surround the hangar. Squads Four, Five, Six, prepare to storm the entrance. Seven, Eight, Nine, prepare to fire on emerging vehicles.” He must be using a portable amplifier, but it was still like hearing an angered god.

  Kemul grunted behind Flandry, shoving parked craft aside to clear a straight path for his own. As the three assault squads started to run across the concrete, Flandry heard him call: “Get in, quick!”

  The Terran sent a dozen shots into the nearing troop, whirled, and jumped. Kemul was at the controls of one vehicle, gunning the motor. He had left the door to the pilot section open. Flandry got a foot in it as the car spurted forward. Then they struck the Guards entering the hangar.

  Somebody shrieked. Somebody else crunched beneath the wheels, horribly. One man seized Flandry’s ankle. Almost, the Terran was pulled loose. He shot, missed, and felt his antique weapon jam. He threw it at the man’s contorted brown face. The car jetted antigrav force and sprang upward. Flandry clung to the doorframe with two hands and one foot. He kicked with the captured leg. His enemy hung on, screaming. Somehow Flandry found strength to raise the leg until it pointed almost straight out, then bring it down again to bash his dangling burden against the side.

  The Guard let go and fell a hundred meters. Flandry toppled back into the control section.

  “They’ll have an armed flyer after us in sixty seconds,” he gasped. “Gimme your place!”

  Kemul glared at him. “What do you know about steering?”

  “More than any planet hugger. Get out! Or d’ you want us to be overhauled and shot down?”

  Kemul locked eyes with Flandry. The wrath in his gaze was shocking. A panel cut off the rear section; this was a rich man’s limousine, though awkward and underpowered compared to the Guard ships Flandry had ridden. The panel slid back. Luang leaned into the pilot compartment and said, “Let him have the wheel, Kemul. Now!”

  The mugger spat an oath, but gave up his seat. Flandry vaulted into it. “I don’t imagine this horse cart has acceleration compensators,” he said. “So get astern and buckle down tight!”