Lieutenant Commander Dominic Flandry reports as ordered to Vice Admiral Sir Ilya Kheraskov who commands perhaps a million Imperial Intelligence agents. When Kheraskov had asked Files who might be available with the right qualifications for a maverick job, a dozen names had come up. Flandry had checked in to Terra the previous week and is owed a lot of leave that will have to be further postponed. He is not the only man being sent to cope with a difficult situation although he is the one that will singlehandedly cut the Gordian knot.
Flandry reports not to his immediate superior but to Kheraskov first because the latter is confident that his office is not bugged and secondly because he is reasonably certain that Flandry will not betray him. Kheraskov must speak frankly about Emperor Josip and his favourite, Aaron Snelund. Flandry would gain and Kheraskov would lose, maybe be shot or enslaved, if Flandry were to repeat what he had said.
Meanwhile, Kheraskov knows what Flandry did on Merseia during the Starkad affair and has learned (at least some of) he did while stationed on Irumclaw. Great Emperor! The Service has to turn a blind eye to some escapades of competent men. There is no blackmail along the lines of "I will expose you if you expose me..." Both men understand that they are working for the good of the Empire, however they have to go about it.
On reflection, we see only two Terran Emperors. In Ensign Flandry, Georgios remains off-stage and Josip is as yet only Crown Prince. In The Rebel Worlds, Josip has become Emperor but remains off-stage. That leaves Hans in A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows and his third son, Gerhard, in A Stone in Heaven. Otto had died earlier. Dietrich becomes Emperor but between volumes. Gerhart remains off-stage during The Game of Empire. In that concluding volume of the Flandry period, Karl is Crown Prince. In the next Technic History instalment, the Empire is long gone but Flandry's efforts have preserved some planetary civilizations.
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I remember, as Flandry entered Kheraskov's office, the admiral was described as wearing the modest jewel of knighthood, an honor more valued and harder to gain than a peerage.
I have regretted that we don't see in person more of the Terran Emperors of Flandry's lifetime: Georgios, Josip III, his unnamed and short lived heir, Hans, Dietrich, and Gerhart.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
BTW, I'm finally rereading one of Anderson's books: GENESIS. I wanted to first finish reading Tolkien's THE LORD OF THE RINGS and the third volume of Solzhenitsyn's HUGE historical novel, MARCH 1917.
And there's STILL one more volume of MARCH 1917 left, and two volumes for APRIL 1917, all of which still needs to be translated into English.
Solzhenitsyn had planned to write historical novels, in a series called THE RED WHEEL, from 1914 until 1922, but I don't think he got further than APRIL 1917 before he died.
Ad astra! Sean
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