by Poul Anderson
The haughty, horned aliens from the planet
Scotha had very well organized intentions
of conquering the Terran Empire--and Captain
Dominic Flandry, Terra's ace saboteur, suddenly
found himself in a strategic position to louse
up the works. How? Well, Achilles had a heel ...
and what else could you call a Scothani?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories January 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Captain Flandry opened his eyes and saw a metal ceiling.
Simultaneously, he grew aware of the thrum and quiver which meant he
was aboard a spaceship running on ultra-drive.
He sat up with a violence that sent the dregs of alcohol swirling
through his head. He'd gone to sleep in a room somewhere in the stews
of Catawrayannis, with no prospect or intention of leaving the city
for an indefinite time--let alone the planet! Now--
The chilling realization came that he was not aboard a human ship.
Humanoid, yes, from the size and design of things, but no vessel ever
built within the borders of the Empire, and no foreign make that he
knew of.
Even from looking at this one small cabin, he could tell. There were
bunks, into one of which he had fitted pretty well, but the sheets
and blankets weren't of plastic weave. They seemed--he looked more
closely--the sheets seemed to be of some vegetable fiber, the blankets
of long bluish-gray hair. There were a couple of chairs and a table in
the middle of the room, wooden, and they must have seen better days
for they were elaborately hand-carved, and in an intricate interwoven
design new to Flandry--and planetary art-forms were a hobby of his. The
way and manner in which the metal plating had been laid was another
indication, and--
* * * * *
He sat down again, buried his whirling head in his hands, and tried to
think. There was a thumping in his head and a vile taste in his mouth
which liquor didn't ordinarily leave--at least not the stuff he'd been
drinking--and now that he remembered, he'd gotten sleepy much earlier
than one would have expected when the girl was so good-looking--
Drugged--oh, no! _Tell me I'm not as stupid as a stereofilm hero!
Anything but that!_
But who'd have thought it, who'd have looked for it? Certainly the
people and beings on whom he'd been trying to get a lead would never
try anything like that. Besides, none of them had been around, he
was sure of it. He'd simply been out building part of the elaborate
structure of demimonde acquaintances and information which would
eventually, by exceedingly indirect routes, lead him to those he was
seeking. He'd simply been out having a good time--_quite_ a good time,
in fact--and--
And now someone from outside the Empire had him. And _now_ what?
He got up, a little unsteadily, and looked around for his clothes.
No sign of them. And he'd paid three hundred credits for that outfit,
too. He stamped savagely over to the door. It didn't have a photocell
attachment; he jerked it open and found himself looking down the muzzle
of a blaster.
It was of different design from any he knew, but it was quite
unmistakable. Captain Flandry sighed, relaxed his taut muscles, and
looked more closely at the guard who held it.
He was humanoid to a high degree, perhaps somewhat stockier than
Terrestrial average--and come to think of it, the artificial gravity
was a little higher than one gee--and with very white skin, long tawny
hair and beard, and oblique violet eyes. His ears were pointed and two
small horns grew above his heavy eyebrow ridges, but otherwise he was
manlike enough. With civilized clothes and a hooded cloak he could
easily pass himself off for human.
Not in the getup he wore, of course, which consisted of a kilt and
tunic, shining beryllium-copper cuirass and helmet, buskins over bare
legs, and a murderous-looking dirk. As well as a couple of scalps
hanging at his belt.
He gestured the prisoner back, and blew a long hollow blast on a horn
slung at his side. The wild echoes chased each other down the long
corridor, hooting and howling with a primitive clamor that tingled
faintly along Captain Flandry's spine.
He thought slowly, while he waited: No intercom, apparently not even
speaking tubes laid the whole length of the ship. And household
articles of wood and animal and vegetable fibres, and that archaic
costume there--They were barbarians, all right. But no tribe that he
knew about.
That wasn't too surprising, since the Terrestrial Empire and the
half-dozen other civilized states in the known Galaxy ruled over
several thousands of intelligent races and had some contact with nobody
knew how many thousands more. Many of the others were, of course, still
planet-bound, but quite a few tribes along the Imperial borders had
mastered a lot of human technology without changing their fundamental
outlook on things. Which is what comes of hiring barbarian mercenaries.
The peripheral tribes were still raiders, menaces to the border planets
and merely nuisances to the Empire as a whole. Periodically they were
bought off, or played off against each other--or the Empire might even
send a punitive expedition out. But if one day a strong barbarian race
under a strong leader should form a reliable coalition--then _vae
victis_!
* * * * *
A party of Flandry's captors, apparently officers, guardsmen, and a few
slaves, came down the corridor. Their leader was tall and powerfully
built, with a cold arrogance in his pale-blue eyes that did not hide a
calculating intelligence. There was a golden coronet about his head,
and the robes that swirled around his big body were rainbow-gorgeous.
Flandry recognized some items as having been manufactured within the
Empire. Looted, probably.
They came to a halt before him and the leader looked him up and
down with a deliberately insulting gaze. To be thus surveyed in the
nude could have been badly disconcerting, but Flandry was immune to
embarrassment and his answering stare was bland.
The leader spoke at last, in strongly accented but fluent Anglic: "You
may as well accept the fact that you are a prisoner, Captain Flandry."
They'd have gone through his pockets, of course. He asked levelly,
"Just to satisfy my own curiosity, was that girl in your pay?"
"Of course. I assure you that the Scothani are not the brainless
barbarians of popular Terrestrial superstition, though--" a bleak
smile--"it is useful to be thought so."
"The Scothani? I don't believe I've had the pleasure--"
"You have probably not heard of us, though we have had some contact
with the Empire. We have found it convenient to remain in obscurity,
as far as Terra is concerned, until the time is ripe. But--what do you
think caused the Alarri to invade you, fifteen years ago?"
Flandry thought back. He had been a boy then, but he had, of course,
avidly followed the news accounts of the terrible fleets that swept in
over the marches and attacked Vega itself. Only the hardest fighting
at the Battle of Mirzan had broken the Alarri. Yet it turned out that
they'd been fleeing still another tribe, a wild and mighty race who had
invaded their own system with fire and ruin. It was a common enough
occurrence in the turbulent barbarian stars; this one incident had
come to the Empire's notice only because the refugees had tried to
conquer it in turn. A political upheaval within the Terrestrial domain
had prevented closer investigation before the matter had been all but
forgotten.
"So you were driving the Alarri before you?" asked Flandry with as
close an approximation to the right note of polite interest as he could
manage in his present condition.
"Aye. And others. The Scothani have quite a little empire now, out
there in the wilderness of the Galaxy. But, since we were never
originally contacted by Terrestrials, we have, as I say, remained
little known to them."
So--the Scothani had learned their technology from some other race,
possibly other barbarians. It was a familiar pattern, Flandry could
trace it out in his mind. Spaceships landed on the primitive world,
the initial awe of the natives gave way to the realization that the
skymen weren't so very different after all--they could be killed like
anyone else; traders, students, laborers, mercenary warriors visited
the more advanced worlds, brought back knowledge of their science and
technology; factories were built, machines produced, and some tribal
king used the new power to impose his rule on all his planet; and then,
to unite his restless subjects, he had to turn their faces outward,
promise plunder and glory if they followed him out to the stars--
Only the Scothani had carried it farther than most. And lying as far
from the Imperial border as they did, they could build up a terrible
power without the complacent, politics-ridden Empire being more than
dimly aware of the fact--until the day when--
_Vae victis!_