Ensign flandry by Poul Anderson

Author:Poul Anderson [Anderson, Poul]
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science fiction, General, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fiction, Fiction - Science Fiction, Science Fiction - General, General & Literary Fiction, Collections & anthologies of various literary forms, Science fiction - gsafd, Fiction anthologies & collections
ISBN: 9780743474436
Publisher: New York : ibooks, 2003.
Published: 2003-06-30T23:00:00+00:00

“I imagine, though,” Flandry prompted, “from time to time when space explorers got together, as it might be in a tavern, you’d swap yarns?”

“Aye, aye. What else? ‘Cept when we was told to keep our hatches dogged about where we’d been. Not easy, foreseer, believe you me ‘tis not, when you could outbrag the crew of ‘em save ‘tis a Naval secret.”

“You must have heard a lot about the Betelgeuse region, regardless.”

Lannawar raised his tankard. Thereby he missed noticing Tachwyr’s frown. But he did break the thread, and the officer caught the raveled end deftly.

“Are you really interested in anecdotes, Ensign? I fear that our good yqan has nothing else to give you.”

“Well, yes, Mei, I am interested in anything about the Betelgeuse sector,” Flandry said. “After all, it borders on our Empire. I’ve already served there, on Starkad, and I daresay I will again. So I’d be grateful for whatever you care to tell me.”

Lannawar came up for air. “If you yourself, Yqan, were never there, perhaps you know someone who was. I ask for no secrets, of course, only stories.”

“Khr-r-r.” Lannawar wiped foam off his chin. “Not many about. Not many what have fared yonderways. They’re either back in space, or they’ve died. Was old Ralgo Tamuar, my barracks friend in training days. He was there aplenty. How he could lie! But he retired to one of the colonies, let me see now, which one?”

“Yqan Belgis.” Tachwyr spoke quietly, with no special inflection, but Lannawar stiffened. “I think best we leave this subject. The Starkadian situation is an unfortunate one. We are trying to be friends with our guest, and I hope we are succeeding, but to dwell on the dispute makes a needless obstacle.” To Flandry, with sardonicism: “I trust the ensign agrees?”

“As you wish,” the Terran mumbled.

Damn, damn, and damn to the power of hell! He’d been on a scent. He could swear he’d been. He felt nauseated with frustration.

Some draughts of ale soothed him. He’d never been idiot enough to imagine himself making any spectacular discoveries or pulling off any dazzling coups on this junket. (Well, certain daydreams, but you couldn’t really count that.) What he had obtained now was—a hint which tended to confirm that the early Merseian expeditions to Starkad had found a big and strange thing. As a result, secrecy had come down like a candlesnuffer. Officers and crews who knew, or might suspect, the truth were snatched from sight. Murdered? No, surely not. The Merseians were not the antlike monsters which Terran propaganda depicted. They’d never have come as far as this, or be as dangerous as they were, had that been the case. To shut a spacefarer’s mouth, you reassigned him or retired him to an exile which might well be comfortable and which he himself might never realize was an exile.

Even for the post of Starkadian commandant, Brechdan had been careful to pick an officer who knew nothing beforehand about his post, and could not since have been told the hidden truth.

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