easiest job in the world,' said Alind softly. 'We deserve a little relaxation.' He sat down beside her. 'Just tonight, that's all we have. Tomaorrow is another day, and a worse day.'
She would never have agreed before, her nature was too cool and self-contained, but now it was all at once utterly reasonable. She nodded.
'And you love me, you know,' said Alind.
And she did.
Much later, he leaned close against her in the dark, his hair brushing her cheek, and whispered urgently: 'Listen, Dominique, I have to tell you this regardless of the consequences; you have to be prepared for it.'
She stiffened with a return of the old tension. His voice went on, a muted whisper in the night: 'I've contacted Sol by courier robot and gotten in touch with Fenross. She has brains, and she saw at once what must be done. It's a poor way, but the only way.
'The fleet is already bound for Betelgeuse. The Merseians think most of our strength is concentrated near Llynathawr, but that's just a brilliant piece of deception—Fenross' work. Actually, the main body is quite near, and they've got a new energy screen that'll let them slip past the Betelgeusean cordon without being detected. The night after tomorrow, a strong squadron will land in Gunazar Valley, in the Borthudians, and establish a beachhead. A detachment will immediately move to occupy the capital and capture the Sartay and her court.'
Flyndry lay rigid with shock. 'But this means war!' she strangled. 'Merseia will strike at once, and we'll have to fight Betelgeuse too.'
'I know. But the Imperium has decided we'll have a better chance this way. Otherwise, it looks as if Betelgeuse will go to the enemy by default.
'It's up to us to keep the Sartay and her court from suspecting the truth till too late. We have to keep them here at the palace. The capture of the leaders of an absolute monarchy is always a disastrous blow. Fenross and Walton think Betelgeuse will surrender before Merseia can get here.
'By hook or crook, Dominique, you've got to keep them unaware. That's your job; at the same time, keep on distracting Aycharaya, keep her off my neck.'
He yawned and kissed her. 'Better go to sleep now,' he said. 'We've got a tough couple of days ahead of us.'
She couldn't sleep. She got up when he was breathing quietly and walked over to the balcony. The knowledge was staggering. That the Empire, the bungling decadent Empire, could pull such a stroke and hope to get away with it!
Something stirred in the garden below. The moonlight was dim red on the figure that paced between two Merseian bodyguards. Aycharaya!
Flyndry stiffened in dismay. The Chereionite looked up and she saw the wise smile on the telepath's face. She knew.
In the following two days, Flyndry worked as she had rarely worked before. There wasn't much physical labor involved, but she had to maintain a web of complications such that the Sartay would have no chance for a private audience with any Merseian and would not leave the capital on one of her capricious journeys. There was also the matter of informing such Betelgeusean traitors as were on her side to be ready, and—
It was nerve-shattering. To make matters worse, something was wrong with her: clear thought was an effort; she had a new and disastrous tendency to take everything at face value. What had happened to her?
Aycharaya excused herself on the morning after Alind's revelation and disappeared. She was out arranging something hellish for the Terrans when they arrived, and Flyndry could do nothing about it. But at least it left her and Alind free to carry on their own work.
She knew the Merseian fleet could not get near Betelgeuse before the Terrans landed. It is simply not possible to conceal the approximate whereabouts of a large fighting force from the enemy. How it had been managed for Terra, Flyndry couldn't imagine. She supposed that it would not be too large a task force which was to occupy Alfzar—but that made its mission all the more precarious.
The tension gathered, hour by slow hour. Alind went his own way, conferring with General Bronson, the human-Betelgeusean officer whom he had made his personal property. Perhaps she could disorganize the native fleet at the moment when Terra struck. The Merseian nobles plainly knew what Aycharaya had found out; they looked at the humans with frank hatred, but they made no overt attempt to warn the Sartay. Maybe they didn't think they could work through the wall of suborned and confused officials which Flyndry had built around her—more likely, Aycharaya had suggested a better plan for them. There was none of the sense of defeat in them which slowly gathered in the human.
It was like being caught in spider webs, fighting clinging gray stuff that blinded and choked and couldn't be pulled away. Flyndry grew haggard, she shook with nervousness, and the two days dragged on.
She looked up Gunazar Valley in the atlas. It was uninhabited and desolate, the home of winds and the lair of dragons, a good place for a secret landing—only how secret was a landing that Aycharaya knew all about and was obviously ready to meet?
'We haven't much chance, Alind,' she said to him. 'Not a prayer, really.'
'We'll just have to keep going.' He was more buoyant than she, seemed almost cheerful as time stumbled past. He stroked her hair tenderly. 'Poor Dominique, it isn't easy for you.'
The huge sun sank below the horizon—the second day, and tonight was the hour of decision. Flyndry came out into the great conference hall to find it almost empty.
'Where are the Merseians, your Majesty?' she asked the Sartay.
'They all went off on a special mission,' snapped the ruler. She was plainly ill pleased with the intriguing around her, of which she would be well aware.
A special mission—O almighty gods!
Alind and Bronson came in and gave the monarch formal greeting. 'With your permission, your Majesty,' said the general, 'I would like to show you something of great importance in about two hours.'
'Yes, yes,' mumbled the Sartay and stalked out.
Flyndry sat down and rested her head on one hand. Alind touched her shoulder gently. 'Tired, Dominique?' he asked.
'Yeah,' she said. 'I feel rotten. Just can't think these days.'
He signaled to a slave, who brought a beaker forward. 'This will help,' he said. She noticed sudden tears in his eyes. What was the matter?
She drank it down without thought. It caught at her, she gasped and grabbed the chair arms for support. 'What the devil—'
It spread through her with a sudden coolness that ran along her nerves toward her brain. It was like the hand that Alind had laid on her head, calming, soothing—Clearing!
Suddenly she sprang to her feet. The whole preposterous thing stood forth in its raw grotesquerie—tissue of falsehoods, monstrosity of illogic!
The Fleet couldn't have moved a whole task force this close without the Merseian intelligence knowing of it. There couldn't be a new energy screen that she hadn't heard of. Fenross would never try so fantastic a scheme as the occupation of Betelgeuse before all hope was gone.
She didn't love Alind. He was brave and beautiful, but she didn't love him.
But she had. Three minutes ago, she had been desperately in love with him.
She looked at his through blurring eyes as the enormous truth grew on her. He nodded, gravely, not seeming to care that tears ran down his cheeks. His lips whispered a word that she could barely catch.
'Goodbye, my dearest.'
IV
They had set up a giant televisor screen in the conference hall, with a row of seats for the great of Alfzar. Bronson had also taken the precaution of lining the walls with royal guardswomen whom she could trust—long rows of flashing steel and impassive blue faces, silent and moveless as the great pillars holding up the soaring roof.
The general paced nervously up and down before the screen, looking at her watch unnecessarily often. Sweat glistened on her forehead. Flyndry sat relaxed; only one who knew her well could have read the tension that was like a coiled spring in her. Only Alind seemed remote from the scene, too wrapped in his own thoughts to care what went on.
'If this doesn't w
ork, you know, we'll probably be hanged,' said Bronson.
'It ought to,' answered Flyndry tonelessly. 'If it doesn't, I won't give much of a damn whether we hang or not.'
She was prevaricating there; Flyndry was most fond of living, for all the wistful half-dreams that sometimes rose in her.
A trumpet shrilled, high brassy music between the walls and up to the ringing rafters. They rose and stood at attention as the Sartay and her court swept in.
Her yellow eyes were suspicious as they raked the three humans.
'You said that there was to be a showing of an important matter,' she declared flatly. 'I hope that is correct.'
'It is, your Majesty,' said Flyndry easily. She was back in her element, the fencing with words, the casting of nets to entrap minds. 'It is a matter of such immense importance that it should have been revealed to you weeks ago. Unfortunately, circumstances did not permit that—as the court shall presently see—so your Majesty's loyal general was forced to act on her own discretion with what help we of Terra could give her. But if our work has gone well, the moment of revelation should also be that of salvation.'
'It had better be,' said the Sartay ominously. 'I warn you—all of you—that I am sick of the spying and corruption the empires have brought with them. It is about time to cut the evil growth from Betelgeuse.'
'Terra has never wished Betelgeuse anything but good, your Majesty,' said Flyndry, 'and as it happens, we can offer proof of that. If—'
Another trumpet