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III

Humans being as ubiquitous as they are, nearly every League outpost on a nonterrestroid planet includes a suite conditioned and stocked for such visitors. Falkayn had been afraid that those Antoranite officers who were of his lineage would have taken the quarters over, leaving him to twiddle his thumbs in the cramped speedster. But they preferred their spaceships, he learned. Perhaps they were wary of booby traps. He was free to twiddle his thumbs in a series of rooms.

His phone chimed as Vanessa's nineteen-hour day was drawing to a close. A man in a form-fitting green uniform looked out of the screen. His features were hard, moustached, and so deeply tanned that at first Falkayn took him for an African. "You are the one from the other Polesotechnic station?" he asked. He spoke coldly, with a guttural accent.

"Yes. David Falkayn. And you're Commander Horn?"

"No. Captain Blanck, in charge of security. Since Commander Horn is to have a conference with you, I am making safe arrangements."

"I'm not quite sure what we are to confer about."

Blanck cracked a smile. It seemed to hurt his face. "Nothing very definite, Freeman Falkayn. We wish certain messages conveyed by you to the League. Otherwise, shall we say that it is mutually advantageous to get some personal impressions of each other, uncomplicated by inherent differences between species. Antoran will fight if need be, but would rather not. Commander Horn wishes to persuade you that we are no monsters, nor engaged in an unreasonable cause. It is hoped that you in turn can convince your superiors."

"Um-m-m . . . okay. Where and when?"

"I think best in your billet. We assume you are not so stupid as to attempt any breach of truce."

"With a war fleet sitting right over my head? Don't worry!" Falkayn considered. "How about dinner here? I've checked the supplies, and they're better than anything a spaceship is likely to have."

Blanck agreed, set the time for an hour hence, and switched off. Falkayn got the kitchen servers busy. The fact that he was to dine with an enemy did not mean he couldn't dine well. Of course, a space cowboy like Utah Horn wouldn't know caviar from buckshot; but Falkayn was prepared to savor for two.

While he dressed, in a formal gold outfit, he lined up his thoughts. There didn't seem to be many humans with the invaders, but they all seemed to be key personnel. No doubt they were the ones who had originally shown the Antoranites how to build warcraft and were the experienced strategists and tacticians of the whole shebang. Horn was willing to come here because a fellow human taken aboard a ship might observe too much, critical little details which would have escaped Beljagor. But Falkayn could try to pump him. . . .

A tender landed from the orbiting flotilla. Dusk had fallen, and Falkayn could barely see that a single human walked toward his lodgings, accompanied by four Kraokan guards. Those took stations at the entrance.

A minute passed while his guest waited in the air lock for ozone to be converted; then Falkayn activated the inner door. The Antoranite had just hung up a filter mask. Falkayn lurched.

"What?" he yelled.

She couldn't be many years older than himself. The uniform was snug around a figure which would have stunned him even if he had not been celibate for months. Blue-black hair fell softly to her shoulders past enormous hazel eyes, tip-tilted nose, the most delightful mouth he had ever—

"But, but, but," he said.

She turned Blanck's accent to music. "Freeman Falkayn? I am Commander Horn."

"Utah Horn?"

"Yes, that is correct, Jutta Horn of Neuheim. You are surprised?"

Falkayn nodded in a blackjacked fashion.

"You see, Neuheim's population being small, any who happen to have some ability must help. Besides, my father was the man who discovered the lost planet and began this whole crusade. The Kraoka, with their feeling for ancestry, revere me on that account; and moreover, they are used to thinking of females as leaders. So I am doubly useful: any orders transmitted by me are sure to be obeyed to the letter. You must have met women spacers before now."

"Uh, it's only that, uh—" I get it. When he dictated his letter to me, Beljagor was using a 'scribe adjusted for Anglic spelling. Quite understandable, when so few people speak German anymore. He did use the masculine pronoun for her. But either he didn't happen to meet her personally, or he's too contemptuous of humans to bother noticing their sex.

The loss is entirely his.

Falkayn collected himself, smiled his largest smile and bowed his most sweeping bow. "I wish I could be so pleasantly surprised every time," he purred. "Welcome, Commander. Do sit down. What would you like to drink?"

She looked doubtful. "I am not sure if I ought."

"Come, come. A dinner without an aperitif is like a—ahem!—a day without sunshine." He had almost said, "A bed without a girl," but that might be rushing matters.

"Ach, I am not familiar with these things."

"High time you became so, then." Falkayn told the nearest server to bring old-fashioneds. He preferred a martini himself, by several light-years, but if her palate was uneducated she'd drink more of something sweet.

She settled primly on a chair. He saw that her wrist communicator was energized, doubtless transmitting to the guards outside. If they heard anything suspicious, they would break in. Still, they wouldn't catch the nuances of what Falkayn was feverishly planning.

He sat down, too. She refused a cigarette. "You must not have had a chance to be corrupted by civilization," he laughed.

"No," she agreed, deadpan. "I was born and raised on Neuheim. My sole visits beyond the system, until now, were to unexplored stars in the course of training cruises."

"What is this Neuheim?"

"Our planet. A part of the Antoranite System."

"Eh? You mean Antoran is a star?"

Jutta Horn bit her lip. "I did not know you had the opposite impression."

In spite of her nearness, or maybe because of being stimulated thereby, Falkayn's mind leaped. "Ah-ha!" he grinned. "This tells me something. We took for granted that the Antoranites were from a single planet and their human allies simply adventurers. Earthmen don't call themselves Solarians. But Earthmen and Martians do collectively. Ergo, there's more than one inhabited planet going around Antoran. Your Neuheim; and how many Kraokan worlds?"

"No matter!" she clipped.

He waved his hand. "I'm sorry if I've disturbed you. Here are our cocktails. Let's drink to a better understanding between us."

She sipped, hesitantly at first, then with frank enjoyment. "You are more friendly than I had expected," she said.

"How could I be otherwise toward you, my lady?" She blushed and fluttered her lashes, yet obviously she was not playing coquette. He eased off; never embarrass your target. "We're discussing our differences like two civilized people, trying to reach a compromise. Aren't we?"

"What authority have you to sign treaties?" She might never have been in civilization, but she had been taught how it worked.

"None," Falkayn said. "As the man on the spot, though, I can make recommendations that will have considerable weight."

"You look so young to be so important," she murmured.

"Oh, well," said Falkayn modestly, "I've knocked around a bit, you know. Had the chance to do this and that. Let's talk about you."

She took his pronoun for plural and started off on what must be a prepared lecture.

Antoran did indeed have planets which the Kraoka of Dzua had once colonized. Though the settlers perforce gave up star travel, they had maintained interplanetary commerce down the millennia, keeping more technology than Vanessa did.

Forty-odd years ago, Robert Horn of Nova Germania was being chased by a League cruiser. He laid a course to throw the pursuer off his trail—the old star-dodge maneuver—and thus passed so near Antoran that he detected radio emissions. Later he slipped back to investigate and discovered the planets.

"Yes, he was an outlaw," his daughter said defiantly. "He was a leader in the Landholders' Revolt . . . so good, so effective, that afterward they dared not give him amnesty."

Falkayn had heard vaguely about the matter. Something to do with a conspiracy among Nova Germania's first families, descendants of the original pioneers, to get back the power that a new constitution had taken away from them. And, yes, the League was involved; the republican government offered better trading concessions than the Landholders had granted in their day. No wonder that this girl was busily doing the League all the dirt she could.

He smiled and refilled her glass. "I can sympathize," he said. "Being from Hermes, you see. Aristocracy's far and away my favorite system."

Her eyes widened. "You are adel—nobly born?"

"Younger son," Falkayn said, modest again. He did not add that he'd been shipped to Earth for his education because he kept kicking over the traces which an aristocrat was expected to carry. "Do go on. You fascinate me."

"The Antoranite System includes one planet which the Kraoka had modified for habitability, but which was too far out, too cold and dark, to be really worth their while. For humans it is better. That is my world, Neuheim."

Hm, Falkayn thought. This implied at least one planet further inward which did provide a good Kraokan environment. Very possibly more than one; a war fleet as big as Beljagor claimed he had seen can't be built in a hurry without a lot of population and resources. But this in turn implied a large sun with a wide biothermal zone. Which didn't make sense! Every F-type star in this region had been visited by League surveyors; likewise the G-types; and there definitely was no such system as—

"My father returned in secret to Nova Germania," Jutta Horn said. "He got recruits there and elsewhere. The whole world of Neuheim was given them in exchange for their help."

I feel pretty sure they planted the idea of conquest in the first place, Falkayn reflected. Yeh, I can guess how Kraoka might fall for the concept of a reunified Vaterland. And given enough anti-League propaganda, they might well come to believe that the only way to get unification is to expel us first.

"So Germanian engineers showed the Antoranites how to make hyperdrive ships," he said; "and Germanian officers trained the crews; and Germanian secret agents kept track of events outsystem—my, you've been busy."

She nodded. Two drinks blurred her tone a little. "That is true. Everything comes second to the crusade. Afterward we can relax. How I look forward!"

"Why not start right away?" Falkayn asked. "Why fight the League? We've no objection to the Kraoka building a star marine at their own expense, nor to any social arrangements you've made on Neuheim."

"After the way the League meddled in the past?" she challenged.

"Yes, granted, we do, now and then, when our interests are threatened. But still, Jutta"—there, he'd established a first-name relationship—"the Polesotechnic League is not a state, not even a government. It's nothing but a mutual-benefit association of interstellar merchants, who're probably more wolfish toward each other than toward anybody outside."

"Power is the one basis of negotiation," she said, turning Clausewitzian. "When we and our allies have secured this region, then perhaps we will allow you to operate here again . . . under our rules. Otherwise you could too easily impose your will on us, if we did not happen to desire the same things as you."

"The League isn't going to take this lying down," he warned.

"I think the League had better do so," she retorted. "We are here, in the region, with interior lines of communication. We can strike from space, anywhere. A League war fleet must come across many parsecs. It will find its bases demolished. And it will not know where our home planets are!"

Falkayn backed off in haste. He didn't want her in that mood. "You certainly have a tremendous advantage," he said. "The League can muster forces greater by orders of magnitude—surely you realize that—but the League may well decide that the cost of defeating you would be greater than any possible gain in doing so."

"Thus my father calculated before he died. Merchants, who lust for nothing but money, can be cowed. Adelsvolk are different. They live for an ideal, not for economics."

I wish to hell you'd had a chance to stick that pretty nose out of your smug, ingrown little kingdom and see what working aristocrats are like, Falkayn thought. Aloud: "Well, now, Jutta, I can't quite agree. Remember, I'm both a merchant and a nobleman's son. The psychologies aren't so unlike. A peer has to be a politician, with everything that that entails, or he's no good. And a merchant has to be an idealist."

"What?" She blinked in startlement. "How?"

"Why, you don't think we work for money alone, do you? If that were the object, we'd stay safe and snug at home. No, it's adventure, new horizons, life's conquest of inanimate nature—the universe itself, the grandest enemy of all."

She frowned, but she was softened. "I do not understand, quite."

"Suppose I give you a few examples—"

 

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Framed