Events move quickly in troubled times. Flandry has a single conversation with Danilo Vymezal, voivode and nachalnik, Kossara's father. Flandry and Kossara have a single night, day and following evening in Vymezal's cabin by the Northrim. Then:
Danilo Vymezal and all his household are murdered with a tactical nuke;
Gospodar Bodin Miyatovich is arrested for high treason;
Chives is wanted dead or alive;
Flandry and Kossara fly to the Obala...
Endgame time. We expect Flandry to defeat the conspiracy but also know that he can lose much:
in Ensign Flandry, he lost his innocence;
in A Circus Of Hells, he earned the enmity of Djana;
in The Rebel Worlds, he loved Kathryn but she stayed with Hugh McCormac.
Flandry suppressing suspicion of his son echoes Gratillonius in denial about his daughter.
Two dramatic potential turning points in the Technic History are Falkayn's confrontation of van Rijn at Mirkheim and Aycharaych's appeal to Flandry on Chereion. After what has happened with Flandry's son and fiancee, Aycharaych asks him to make further betrayals. That was probably already impossible but has certainly become so.
We parallel Flandry and Aycharaych with Bond and Blofeld:
at the end of Thunderball, Bond learns that someone called Blofeld had been the top man in SPECTRE;
in The Spy Who Loved Me and again at the beginning of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Bond knows of a criminal called Blofeld but there has been no personal contact as yet;
at the end of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, with the murder of Tracy, the conflict between Bond and Blofeld becomes personal...
Similarly, by the end of A Knight..., Flandry has lost both his son and fiancee. How can Aycharaych possibly ask him:
"'What are a few more lives to you? What is Terra?'" (XX, p. 600)
A few more lives!
In this final dialogue, Aycharaych addresses Flandry as "'Dominic...'" and confirms again that he has been engaged in "'...an art, a sport...'" (ibid.)
Finally, we fully understand both of these "Honorable Enemies."
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
One thing I remembered about Danilo Vymezal's meeting with Flandry was the puzzlement expressed by the former at why events in Zorkagrad had seemed unnaturally "suspended" for so long a time. Of course that was because Aycharaych and his agents had been trying to control and manipulate events in ways satisfactory to them.
IMO, what triggered this spate of violent activity was somebody recognizing Chives after he arrived in Zorkagrad. A recognition which caused this Merseian agent to order immediate action, so Flandry would not have time to investigate and upset these Merseian schemes.
Even if Kossara and her family had not been murdered, I agree it would have been almost inconceivable for Aycharaych to expect Flandry to defect. By then I have to wonder if the Chereionite was no longer quite SANE. Long brooding over the achievements of his extinct race and the monuments they had left behind on Chereion would do that.
Yes, Aycharaych was being callous in his dismissal of Terra and all the lives on that and other planets.
I'm finally reading Fleming's CASINO ROYALE, and I've already reached Chapter 10, where James Bond began playing his deadly game of Baccarat with Le Chiffre. I have to admit I am coming to have a higher opinion than I had expected of 007. And I've noticed parallels of Bond with Flandry: they both enjoyed good food, dressing well, and were thoroughgoing professionals as Intelligence agents. There were also serious and real differences between them, of course, but that can be discussed at another time.
Ad astra! Sean
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