Honorable Enemies Rethought Read online

went along at her side. There was a speculative look about him.

  II

  Usually the giant stars have many planets, and Betelgeuse, with forty-seven, is no exception. Of these, six have intelligent native races, and the combined resources of the whole system are considerable, even in a civilization used to thinking in terms of thousands of stars.

  When the first Terrestrial explorers arrived, almost a thousand years previously, they found that the people of Alfzar had already mastered interplanetary travel and were in the process of conquering the other worlds—a process speeded up by their rapid adoption of the more advanced human technology. However, they had not attempted to establish an empire on the scale of Sol or Merseia, contenting themselves with maintaining hegemony over enough neighbor suns to protect their home. There had been clashes with the expanding powers around them, but generations of wily Sartayes had found it profitable to play their potential enemies off against each other; and the great states had, in turn, found it expedient to maintain Betelgeuse as a buffer against their rivals and against the peripheral barbarians.

  But the gathering tension between Terra and Merseia had raised Betelgeuse to a position of critical importance. Lying squarely between the two great empires, he was in a position with his powerful fleet to command the most direct route between them and, if allied with either one, to strike at the heart of the other. If Merseia could get the alliance, it would very probably be the last preparation he considered necessary for war with Terra. If Terra could get it, Merseia would suddenly be in a deteriorated position and would almost have to make concessions.

  So both empires had missions on Alfzar trying to persuade the Sartay of the rightness of their respective causes and the immense profits to be had by joining. Pressure was being applied wherever possible; officials were lavishly bribed; spies were swarming through the system getting whatever information they could and—of course—being immediately disowned by their governments if they were caught.

  It was normal diplomatic procedure, but its critical importance had made the Service send two of its best agents, Flyndry and Alind, to Betelgeuse to do what they could in persuading the Sartay, finding out her weaknesses, and throwing as many monkey wrenches as possible into the Merseian activities. Alind was especially useful in working on the many humans who had settled in the system long before and become citizens of the kingdom; quite a few of them held important positions in the government and the military. Flyndry—

  And now, it seemed, Merseia had called in his top spy, and the subtle, polite, and utterly deadly battle was on.

  The Sartay gave a hunting party for her distinguished guests. It pleased her sardonic temperament to bring enemies together under conditions where they had to be friendly to each other. Most of the Merseians must have been pleased, too; hunting was their favorite sport. The more citified Terrestrials were not at all happy about it, but they could hardly refuse.

  Flyndry was especially disgruntled at the prospect. She had never cared for physical exertion, though she kept in trim as a matter of necessity. And she had too much else to do.

  Too many things were going disastrously wrong. The network of agents, both Imperial and bribed Betelgeusean—who ultimately were under her command—were finding the going suddenly rugged. One after another, they disappeared; they walked into Merseian or Betelgeusean traps; they found their best approaches blocked by unexpected watchfulness. Flyndry couldn't locate the source of the difficulty, but since it had begun with Aycharaya's arrival, she could guess. The Chereionite was too damned smart to be true. Sunblaze, it just wasn't possible that anyone could have known about those Jurovian projects, or that Yamatsu's hiding place should have been discovered, or—And now this damned hunting party! Flyndry groaned.

  Her slave roused her in the dawn. Mist, tinged with blood by the red sun, drifted through the high windows of her suite. Someone was blowing a horn somewhere, a wild call in the vague mysterious light, and she heard the growl of engines warming up.

  'Sometimes,' she muttered sourly, 'I feel like going to the Empress and telling her where to put our beloved Empire.'

  Breakfast made the universe slightly more tolerable. Flyndry dressed with her usual finicky care in an ornate suit of skintight green and a golden cloak with hood and goggles, hung a needle gun and dueling sword at her waist, and let the slave trim her reddish-brown mustache to the micrometric precision she demanded. Then she went down long flights of marble stairs, past royal guards in helmet and corselet, to the courtyard.

  The hunting party was gathering. The Sartay herself was present, a typical Alfzarian humanoid—short, stocky, hairless, blue-skinned, with huge yellow eyes in the round, blunt-faced head. Other nobles of Alfzar and its fellow planets were present, more guardswomen, a riot of color in the brightening dawn. There were the members of the regular Terrestrial embassy and the special mission, a harried and unhappy looking crew. And there were the Merseians.

  Flyndry gave them all formal geetings. After all, Terra and Merseia were nominally at peace, however many women were being shot and cities burning on the marches. Her gray eyes looked sleepy and indifferent but they missed no detail of the enemy's appearance.

  The Merseian nobles glanced at her with the thinly covered contempt they had for all humans. They were mammals, but with more traces of reptilian ancestry in them than Terrans showed. A huge-thewed two meters they stood, with a spiny ridge running from forehead to the end of the long, thick tail which they could use to such terrible effect in hand-to-hand battle. Their hairless skins were pale green, faintly scaled, but their massive faces were practically human. Arrogant black eyes under heavy brow ridges met Flyndry's gaze with a challenge.

  I can understand that they despise us, she thought. Their civilization is young and vigorous, its energies turned ruthlessly outward; Terra is old, satiated—decadent. Our whole policy is directed toward maintaining the galactic status quo, not because we love peace but because we're comfortable the way things are. We stand in the way of Merseia's dream of an all-embracing galactic empire. We're the first ones they have to smash.

  I wonder—historically, they may be on the right side. But Terra has seen too much bloodshed in his history, has too wise and weary a view of life. We've given up seeking perfection and glory; we've learned that they're chimerical—but that knowledge is a kind of death within us.

  Still—I certainly don't want to see planets aflame and humans enslaved and an alien culture taking up the future. Terra is willing to compromise; but the only compromise Merseia will ever make is with overwhelming force. Which is why I'm here.

  A stir came in the streaming red mist, and Aycharaya's tall form was beside her. The Chereionite smiled amiably. 'Good morning, Captain Flyndry,' she said.

  'Oh—good morning,' said Flyndry, starting. The avian unnerved her. For the first time, she had met her professional superior, and she didn't like it.

  But she couldn't help liking Aycharaya personally. As they stood waiting, they fell to talking of Polaris and its strange worlds, from which the conversation drifted to the comparative xenology of intelligent primitives throughout the galaxy. Aycharaya had a vast fund of knowledge and a wry humor matching Flyndry's. When the horn blew for assembly, they exchanged the regretful glance of brave enemies. It's too bad we have to be on opposite sides. If things had been different—

  But they weren't.

  The hunters strapped themselves into their tiny one-man airjets. Each had a needle-beam projector in the nose, not too much armament when you hunted the Borthudian dragons. Flyndry thought that the Sartay would be more than pleased if the game disposed of some of her guests.

  The squadron lifted into the sky and streaked northward for the mountains. Fields and forests lay in dissolving fog below them, and the enormous red disc of Betelgeuse was rising into a purplish sky. Despite herself, Flyndry enjoyed the reckless speed and the roar of cloven air around her. It was godlike, this rushing over the world to fight the monsters at its edge.

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nbsp; In a couple of hours, they raised the Borthudian mountains, gaunt windy peaks rearing into the upper sky, the snow on their flanks like blood in the ominous light. Signals began coming over the radio; scouts had spotted dragons here and there, and jet after jet broke away to pursue them. Presently Flyndry found herself alone with one other vessel.

  As they hummed over fanged crags and swooping canyons, she saw two shadows rise from the ground and her belly muscles tightened. Dragons!

  The monsters were a good ten meters of scaled, snake-like length, with jaws and talons to rend steel. Huge leathery wings bore them aloft, riding the wind with lordly arrogance as they hunted the great beasts that terrorized villagers but were their prey.

  Flyndry kicked over her jet and swooped for one of them. It grew monstrously in her sights. She caught the red glare of its eyes as it banked to meet her. No running away here; the dragons had never learned to be afraid. It rose against her.

  She squeezed her trigger and a thin sword of energy leaped out to burn past the creature's scales into its belly. The dragon held to its collision course. Flyndry rolled out of its way. The mighty wings clashed meters from her.

  She had not allowed for the tail. It swung savagely and the blow shivered the teeth in