A Merseian spaceship that arrives on Talwin:
"...did bear a direct word from the Protector." (p. 304)
Presumably the Protector of the Grand Council is still Brechdan Ironrede who knows that Dominic Flandry saved the Terran fleet, and thus Terra herself, at Starkad. It makes sense then when Ydwyr tells Djana that Flandry is to be taken to Merseia to be interrogated about the secrets of his mentor, Max Abrams. Ydwyr gives Djana the option of privately informing Flandry so that we can take what is apparently the only other option of suicide. Would a Merseian do this? At any rate, Ydwyr does. However, we later learn that no orders had been received about Flandry. Ydwyr was merely testing Djana's response to such a story. But I still think that the original narrative that Brechdan would have wanted Flandry to be interrogated on Merseia remains infinitely more plausible.
Of course, threatening Flandry instead of killing him immediately was the worst move that any of his enemies could have made.
2 comments:
That does happen: people get overconfident if they feel in control of events, and let their focus slip an their sense of priorities decay.
After all, Flandry's ability to turn the tables in a setting where he's apparently helpless... that would strain a realist's sense of credibility!
And of course bravura performances by individuals like that -also- occur, whether by individual genius, sheer luck, or some combination of the two.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I had more or less the same idea. That is, on getting that report on how their agents on Talwin had engineered Flandry's capture, I can imagine Brechdan Ironrede and his Grand Council mistakenly deciding that despite spoiling their schemes at Sax0/Starkad, Flandry was not very important, just one young Navy officer among many thousands of similar officers.
Even if that was the case, the smart thing for Brechdan to do would be to order Flandry's execution, just in case.
Ad astra! Sean
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