The half hour slid by quickly. As it approached its end and they prepared to tie into their chairs, Donal noticed the chronometer on the control room wall. It stood at 23:10 and the half hour would be up at 23:12.
"Make that start at 23:15," he directed Bannerman. The word was passed to the other ships. Everyone was in battle dress in their chairs and at their posts, waiting. Donal felt a strange metallic taste in his mouth and the slow sweat began to work out on the surface of his skin.
"Give me an all-ship hookup," he said. There was a few seconds pause, and then a Third Officer spoke from the control panel.
"You're hooked in, sir."
"Men," said Donal. "This is Captain Graeme." He paused. He had no idea what he had intended to say. He had asked for the hookup on impulse, and to break the strain of the last few moments which must be weighing on all the rest as much as him. "I'll tell you one thing. This is something Newton's never going to forget. Good luck to all of you. That's all."
He wigwagged to the Third Officer to cut him off; and looked up at the clock. A chime sounded softly through the ship.
It was 23:15.
SUB-PATROL CHIEF II
Newton was not to forget.
To a world second only to Venus in its technical accomplishments—and some said not even second—to a world rich in material wealth, haughty with its knowledge, and complacent in the contemplation of its lavish fighting forces, came the shadow of the invader. One moment its natives were secure as they had always been behind the ringing strength of their ninety ships in orbit—and then enemy craft were upon them, making runs across the skies of their planet, bombing them with—what1?
No, Newton was never to forget. But that came afterward.
To the men in the five ships, it was the here and now that counted. Their first run across the rich world below them seemed hardly more than another exercise. The ninety ships were there—as well as a host of other spacecraft. They—or as many of them as were not occluded by the body of the planet— registered on the instruments of the Freilander ships. But that was all. Even the second run was almost without incident. But by the time Donal's leading ship came through for the start of the third run, Newton was beginning to buzz like a nest of hornets, aroused.
The sweat was running freely down Donal's face as they broke into the space surrounding the planet; and it was not tension alone that was causing it. The psychic shocks of five phase shifts were taking their toll. Halfway in their run there was a sudden sharp tremor that shook their small white-walled world that was the control room, but the ship continued as if unhurt, released its second torpedo and plunged into the safety of its sixth phase shift.
"Damage?" called Donal—and was surprised to hear his voice issue on an odd croaking note. He swallowed and asked again, in a more normal, controlled tone. "Damage?"
"No damage—" called an officer sharply, from the control panel. "Close burst."
Donal turned his eyes almost fiercely back onto the scene in the Eye. The second ship appeared. Then the third. The fourth. The fifth.
"Double up this time!" ordered Donal harshly. There was a short minute or two of rest and then the sickening wrench of the phase shift again.
In the Eye, its magnification jumping suddenly, Donal caught sight of two Newtonian ships, one planetward, the other in a plane and at approximately two o'clock to the line of the bombing run they had begun.
"Defensive—" began Donal; but the gun crews had waited for no order. Their tracking had been laid and the computers were warm. As he watched, the Newtonian ship which was ahead and in their plane opened out like a burst balloon in slow motion and seemed to fall away from them.
—Another phase shift.
The room swam for a second in Donal's blurred eyes. He felt a momentary surge of nausea; and, on the heels of it, heard someone over at the panel, retching. He blazed up inside, forcing an anger to fight the threatening sickness.
It's in your mind—it's all in your mind—he slapped the thought at himself like a curse. The room steadied; the sickness retreated a little way.
"Time—" It was Bannerman, calling in a half-gasping voice from the panel. Donal blinked and tried to focus on the scene in the Eye. The rank odor of his own sweat was harsh in his nostrils—or was it simply that the room was permeated with the stink of all their sweating?
In the Eye he could make out that four ships had come through on this last run. As he watched, the fifth winked into existence.
"Once more!" he called, hoarsely. "In at a lower level, this time." There was a choked, sobbing-like sound from the direction of the panel; but he deliberately did not turn his head to see who it was.
Again the phase shift.
Blur of planet below. A sharp shock. Another.
Again the phase shift.
The control room—full of mist? No—his own eyes. Blink them. Don't be sick.
"Damage?"
No answer.
"Damage!"
"—Light hit. Aft. Sealed—"
"Once more."
"Captain—" Bannerman's voice, "we can't make it again. One of our ships—"
Check in the Eye. Images dancing and wavering— yes, only four ships.
"Which one?"
"I think—" Bannerman, gasping, "Mendez."
"Once more."
"Captain, you can't ask—"
"Give me a hookup then." Pause. "You hear me? Give me a hookup."
"Hookup—" some officer's voice. "You're hooked up, captain."
"All right, this is Captain Graeme." Croak and squeak. Was that his voice speaking? "I'm calling for volunteers—one more run. Volunteers only. Speak up, anyone who'll go."
Long pause.
"Shai Dorsai!"
"Shai El Man!—any others?"
"Sir—" Bannerman—"The other two ships aren't receiving."
Blink at Eye. Focus. True. Two of three ships there yawning out of line.
"Just the two of us then. Bannerman?"
"At"—croaking—"your orders, sir."
"Make the run."
Pause ...
Phase shift!
Planet, whirling—shock—dark space. Can't black out now—
"Pull her out of it!" Pause. "Bannerman!"
Weakly responding: "Yes sir—"
PHASE SHIFT
—Darkness ...
"—Up!"
It was a snarling, harsh, bitter whisper in Donal's ear. He wondered, eyes-closed, where it was coming from. He heard it again, and once again. Slowly it dawned on him that he was saying it to himself.
He fought his eyes open.
The control room was still as death. In the depths of the eye before him three small tiny shapes of ships could be seen, at full magnification, far-flung from each other. He fumbled with dead fingers at the ties on his suit, then bound them to his chair. One by one they came free. He pushed himself out of the chair and fell to his knees on the floor.
Swaying, staggering, he got to his feet. He turned himself toward the five chairs at the control panel, and staggered to them.
In four of the chairs, Bannerman and his three officers sagged unconscious. The Third Officer seemed more than unconscious. His face was milkish white and he did not seem to be breathing. All four men had been sick.
In the fifth chair, Lee hung twisted in his ties. He was not unconscious. His eyes were wide on Donal as he approached, and a streak of blood had run down from one corner of the orderly's mouth. He had apparently tried to break his ties by main strength, like a mindless animal, and go directly to Donal. And yet his eyes were not insane, merely steady with an unnatural fixity of purpose. As Donal reached him Lee tried to speak; but all he was able to manage for a second was a throttled sound, and a Httle more blood came out of the corner of his mouth.
"Y'arright?" he mumbled, finally.
"Yes," husked Donal. "Get you loose in a minute. What happened to your mouth?"
"Bit tongue—" mumbled Lee thickly. "M'arright."
Donal unfastened the last of the ties and, reaching up, opened Lee's mouth with his hands. He had to use real strength to do so. A little more blood came out, but he was able to see in. One edge of Lee's tongue, halfway back from the tip, had been bitten entirely through.
"Don't talk," directed Donal. "Don't use that tongue at all until you can get it fixed."
Lee nodded, with no mark of emotion, and began painfully to work out of the chair.
By the time he was out, Donal had managed to get the ties loose on the still form of the Third Officer. He pulled the man out of the chair and laid him on the floor. There was no perceptible heartbeat. Donal stretched him out and attempted to begin artificial respiration; but at the first effort his head swam dizzily and he was forced to stop. Slowly he pulled himself erect and began to break loose the ties on Bannerman.
"Get the Second, if you feel up to it," he told Lee. The Cobyman staggered stiffly around to the Second Officer and began work on his ties.
Between the two of them, they got the three Freilanders stretched, out on the floor and their helmets off. Bannerman and the Second Officer began to show signs of regaining consciousness and Donal left them to make another attempt at respiration with the Third Officer. But he found the body, when he touched it. was already beginning to cool.
He turned back and began work on the First Officer, who was still laxly unconscious. After a while the First Officer began to breathe deeply and more steadily; and his eyes opened. But it was apparent from his gaze that he did not see the rest of them, or know where he was. He stared at the control panel with blank eyes like a man in a heavily drugged condition.
"How're you feeling?" Donal asked Bannerman. The Freiland captain grunted, and made an effort to raise himself up on one elbow. Donal helped, and between the two of them they got him, first sitting up, then to his knees, and finally—with the help of the back of a chair to pull him up—to his feet.
Bannerman's eyes had gone directly to the control panel, from the first moment they had opened. Now, without a word, he pulled himself painfully back into his chair and began clumsily to finger studs.
"All ship sections," he croaked into the grille before him. "Report."
There was no answer.
"Report!" he said. His forefinger came down on a button and an alarm bell rang metallically loud through the ship. It ceased and a faint voice came from the speaker overhead.
"Fourth Gun Section reporting as ordered, sir—"
The battle of Newton was over.
HERO
Sirius himself had just set; and the small bright disk of that white dwarf companion that the Freilanders and the New Earthmen had a number of uncomplimentary names for was just beginning to show strongly through the wall of Donal's bedroom, Donal sat, bathed in the in-between light, dressed in only a pair of sport trunks, sorting through some of the interesting messages that had come his way, recently— since the matter of the raid on Newton.
So engrossed was he that he paid no attention until Lee tapped him on one brown-tanned shoulder.
"Time to dress for the party," said the Cobyman. He had a gray dress uniform of jacket and trousers, cut in the long-line Freiland style, over one arm. It was fashionably free of any insignia of rank. "I've got a couple of pieces of news for you. First, she was here again."
Donal frowned, getting into the uniform. Elvine had conceived the idea of nursing him after his return from the short hospital stay that had followed the Newton affair. It was her convenient conclusion that he was still suffering from the psychological damage of the overdose of phase-shifting they had all gone through. Medical opinion and Donal's to the contrary, she had insisted on attaching herself to him with a constancy which lately had led him to wonder if perhaps he would not have preferred the phase shifting itself. The frown now vanished, however.
"I think I see an end to that," he said. "What else?"
"This William of Ceta you're so interested in," answered Lee. "He's here for the party."
Donal turned his head to look sharply at the man. But Lee was merely delivering a report. The bony face was empty of even those small signs of expression which Donal had come to be able to read, in these past weeks of association.
"Who told you I was interested in William?" he demanded.
"You listen when people talk about him," said Lee. "Shouldn't I mention him?"
"No, that's all right," Donal said. "I want you to tell me whenever you find out anything about him you think I might not know. I just didn't know you observed that closely."
Lee shrugged. He held the jacket for Donal to slide his arms into.
"Where'd he come from?" asked Donal.
"Venus," said Lee. "He's got a Newton man with him—big young drunk named Montor. And a girl— one of those special people from the Exotics."
"The Select of Kultis?"
"That's right"
"What're they doing here?"
"He's top-level," said Lee. "Who is on Freiland and not here for your party?"
Donal frowned again. He had almost managed to forget that it was in his honor these several hundred well-known people would be gathered here tonight. Oh—not that he would be expected to place himself on show. The social rules of the day and this particular world made lionizing impolite. Direct lionizing, mat is. You honored a man by accepting his hospitality, that was the theory. And since Donal had little in the way of means to provide hospitality for the offering, the marshal had stepped into the breach. Nevertheless, this was the sort of occasion that went against Donal's instinctive grain.
He put that matter aside and returned to that of William. If the man happened to be visiting Freiland it would be unthinkable that he should not be invited, and hardly thinkable that he should decline to come. It could be just that. Perhaps, thought Donal with a weariness beyond his years, I'm starting at shadows. But even as his mind framed the thought, he knew it was not true. It was that oddness in him, now more pronounced than ever since the psychic shaking-up of the Newtonian battle, with its multiple phase shifts. Things seen only dimly before were now be- ginning to take on shape and substance for him. A pattern was beginning to form, with William as its center, and Donal did not like what he saw of the pattern.
"Let me know what you can find out about William," he said.
"Right," replied Lee. "And the Newton man?" "And the girl from the Exotics." Donal finished dressing and took a back slipway down to the marshal's office. El vine was there, and with her and the marshal, as guests, were William and Anea.
"Come in, Donal!" called Gait, as Donal hesitated in the entrance. "You remember William and Anea, here!"
"I'd be unlikely to forget." Donal came in and shook hands. William's smile was warm, his handclasp firm; but the hand of Anea was cool and quickly withdrawn from Donal's grasp, and her smile perfunctory. Donal caught Elvine watching them closely; and a faint finger of warning stirred the surface of Donal's mind.
"I've looked forward to seeing you again," said William. "I owe you an apology, Donal. Indeed I do. I've underestimated your genius considerably."
"Not genius," said Donal.
"Genius," insisted William. "Modesty's for little men." He smiled frankly. "Surely you realize this affair with Newton's made you the newest nova on our military horizon?"
"I'll have to watch out your flattery doesn't go to my head. Prince." Donal could deal in double mean- ing, too. William's first remark had put him almost at his ease. It was not the wolves among people who embarrassed and confused him; but the sheep dogs gone wrong. Those, in fact, who were equipped by nature and instinct to be one thing and through chance and wrongheadedness found themselves acting contrary to their own natures. Possibly, he had thought, that was the reason he found men so much easier to deal with than women—they were less prone to self-deception. Now, however, a small intake of breath drew his attention to Anea.
"You're modest," she said; but two touches of color high on the cheek-bones of her otherwise slightly pale face, and her unfriendly eyes, did not agree with her.
"Maybe," he said, as lightly as he could, "that's because I don't really believe I've got anything to be modest about. Anyone could have done what I did above Newton—and, in fact, several hundred other men did. Those that were there with me."
"Oh, but it was your idea," put in Elvine.
Donal laughed.
"All right," he said. "For the idea, I'll take credit."
"Please do," said Anea.
"Well," put in Gait, seeing that things were getting out of hand. "We were just about to go in and join the party, Donal. Will you come along?"
"I'm looking forward to it," answered Donal, smoothly.
They proceeded, a small knot of people, out through the big doors of the office and into the main hall of the mansion. It was already full of guests in- terspersed with drifting floats laden with food and drinks. Into this larger body of people, their small group melted like one drop of coloring matter into a glass of water. Their individual members were recognized, captured and dispersed by other guests; and in a few seconds they were all separated—all but Donal and Elvine, who had taken his arm possessively, as they had come out of the office.
She pulled him into the privacy of a small alcove.
"So that's what you've been mooning over!" she said fiercely. "It's her!"
"Her?" he pulled his arm loose. "What's wrong with you, Ev?"
"You know who I mean!" she snapped. "That Select girl. It's her you're after—though why, I don't know. She's certainly nothing special to look at. And she's hardly even grown up yet."
He chilled suddenly. And she—abruptly realizing that this time she had gone too far, took a sudden, frightened step back from him. He fought to control himself; but this was the authentic article, one of the real Dorsai rages that was his by inheritance. His limbs were cold, he saw everything with an unwonted clarity, and his mind ticked away like some detached machine in the far depths of his being. There was murder in him at the moment. He hung balanced on the knife edge of it.
"Good-by, Ev," he said. She took another, stiff-legged step back from him, then another, and then she turned and fled. He turned about to see the shocked faces of those nearby upon him.
His glance went among them like a scythe, and (hey fell away before it. He walked forward through them and out of the hall as if he had been alone in the room.
He was pacing back and forth in the bare isolation of the marshal's office, walking off the charge of adrenalin that had surged through him on the heels of his emotion, when the door opened. He turned like a wolf; but it was only Lee. "You need me?" asked Lee. The three words broke the spell. The tension in him snapped suddenly; and he burst out laughing. He laughed so long and loud that the Cobyman's eyes became shadowed first with puzzlement, and then with a sort of fear.
"No ... no ... it's all right," he gasped at last. He had a fastidiousness about casually touching people; but now he clapped Lee on the shoulder to reassure him, so unhappy did the lean man look. "See if you can find me a drink—some Dorsai whisky."
Lee turned and left the room. He was back in seconds with a tulip-shaped glass holding perhaps a deciliter of the bronze whisky. Donal drank it down, grateful for the burn in his throat.
"Learn anything about William?" He handed the glass back to Lee.
Lee shook his head.
"Not surprised," murmured Donal. He frowned. "Have you seen ArDell Montor around—that Newtonian that came with William?"
Lee nodded.
"Can you show me where I can find him?"
Lee nodded again. He led Donal out onto the ter- race, down a short distance, and in through an open wall to the library. There, in one of the little separate reading cubicles, he found ArDell alone with a bottle and some books.
"Thanks, Lee," said DonaJ. Lee vanished. Donal came forward and sat down at the small table in the cubicle opposite ArDell and his bottle.
"Greetings," said ArDell, looking up. He was not more than slightly drunk by his own standards. "Hoping to talk to you."
"Why didn't you come up to my room?" asked Donal.
"Not done," ArDell refilled his glass, glanced about the table for another and saw only a vase with some small native variform lilies in it. He dumped these on the floor, filled the vase and passed it politely to Donal.
"No thanks," said Donal.
"Hold it anyway," ArDell said. "Makes me uncomfortable, drinking with a man who won't drink. No, besides, better to just bump into each other." He looked at Donal suddenly with one of his unexpected flashes of soberness and shrewdness. "He's at it again."
"William?"
"Who else?" ArDell drank. "But what would he be going with Project Blaine?" ArDell shook his head. "There's a man. And a scientist. Make two of any of the rest of us. Can't see him leading Blaine around by the nose—but still .. ."
"Unfortunately," said Donal, "we are all tied to the business end of our existence by the red tape in our contracts. And it's in business William shines."
"But he doesn't make sense!" ArDell twisted the glass in his hands. "Take me. Why would he want to ruin me? But he does." He chuckled suddenly. "I've got him scared now."
"You have?" asked Donal. "How?"
ArDell tapped the bottle with one forefinger.
"This. He's afraid I may kill myself. Evidently he doesn't want that."
"Will you?" asked Donal, bluntly.
ArDell shook his head.
"I don't know. Could I come out of it, now? It's been five years. I started it deliberately to spite him—didn't even like the stuff, like you. Now, I wonder. I'll tell you"—he leaned forward over the table—"they can cure me, of course. But would I be any good now, if they did? Math—it's a beautiful thing. Beautiful like art. That's the way I remember it; but I'm not sure. Not sure at all any more." He shook his head again. "When the time comes to dump this," he pointed again at the bottle, "you need something that means more to you. I don't know if work does, any more."
"How about William?" asked Donal.
"Yes," said ArDell slowly, "there is him. That would do it. One of these days I'm going to find out why he did this to me. Then—"
"What does he seem to be after?" asked Donal. "I mean, in general?"
"Who knows?" ArDell threw up his hands. "Business. More business. Contracts—more contracts.
Agreements with every government, a finger in every honey-pot. That's our William."
"Yes," said Donal. He pushed back his float and stood up.
"Sit down," said ArDell. "Stop and talk. You never sit still for more than a second or two. For the love of peace, you're the only man between the stars I can talk to, and you won't sit still."
"I'm sorry," Donal said. "But there're things I have to do. A day'll come, maybe, when we can sit down and talk."
"I doubt it," muttered ArDell. "I doubt it very much."
Donal left him there, staring at his bottle.
He went in search of the marshal; but it was Anea he encountered first, standing upon a small balcony, deserted except for herself; and gazing out over the hall, directly below, with an expression at the same time so tired and so longing that he was suddenly and deeply moved by the sight of it.
He approached her, and she turned at the sound of his footsteps. At the sight of him, her expression changed.
"You again," she said, in no particularly welcome tone.
"Yes," said Donal, brusquely. "I meant to search you out later, but this is too good a chance to pass up."
'Too good."
"I mean you're alone ... I mean I can talk to you privately," said Donal, impatiently.
She shook her head.
"We've got nothing to talk about," she said.
"Don't talk nonsense," said Donal. "Of course we have—unless you've given over your campaign against William."
"Well!" The word leaped from her lips and her eyes flashed their green fire at him. "Who do you think you are!" she cried furiously. "Who ever gave you the right to have any say about what I do?"
"I'm part Maran through both my grandmothers," he said. "Maybe that's why I feel a sense of responsibility to you."
"I don't believe it!" she snapped. "About you being part Maran, that is. You couldn't be part Maran, someone like you, a—" she checked, fumbling for words.
"Well?" He smiled a little grimly at her. "A what?"
"A ... mercenary*" she cried triumphantly, finding at last the word that would hurt him the most, in her misinterpretation of it.
He was hurt, and angered; but he managed to conceal it. This girl had the ability to get through his defenses on the most childish level, where a man like William could not.
"Never mind that," he said. "My question was about you and William. I told you not to try intriguing against him the last time I saw you. Have you followed that advice?"
"Well, I certainly don't have to answer that question," she blazed directly at him. "And I won't."
"Then," he said, finding suddenly an insight into her mat was possibly a natural compensation for her unusual perceptiveness where he was concerned. "You have. I'm glad to know that." He turned to go. "I'll leave you now."
"Wait a minute," she cried. He turned back to her. "I didn't do it because of you!"
"Didn't you?"
Surprisingly, her eyes wavered and fell.
"All right!" she said. "It just happened your ideas coincided with mine."
"Or, that what I said was common sense," he retorted, "and being the person you are, you couldn't help seeing it."
She looked fiercely up at him again.
"So he just goes on ... and I'm chained to him for another ten years with options—"
"Leave that part to me," said Donal.
Her mouth opened.
"You!" she said; and her astonishment was so great that the word came out in a tone of honest weakness.
"I'll take care of it."
"You!" she cried. And the word was entirely different this time. "You put yourself in opposition to a man like William—" she broke off suddenly, turning away. "Oh!" she said angrily, "I don't know why I keep listening to you as if you were actually telling the truth—when I know what kind of person you are."
"You don't know anything at all about what kind . of a person I am!" he snapped, nettled again. "I've done a few things since you first saw me."
"Oh, yes," she said, "you've had a man shot, and pretended to bomb a planet."
"Good-by," he said, wearily, turning away. He went out through the little balcony entrance, abruptly leaving her standing there; and unaware that he had left her, not filled with the glow of righteous indignation and triumph she had expected, but oddly disconcerted and dismayed.
He searched throughout the rest of the mansion and finally located the marshal back in his office, and alone.
"May I come in, sir?" he said from the doorway.
"Of course, of course—" Gait looked up from his desk. "Lock the door behind you. I've had nothing but people drifting in, thinking this was an extra lounge. Why'd they think I had it set up without any comfortable floats or cushions in the first place?"
Donal locked the door behind him and came across the wide floor to the desk.
"What is it, boy?" asked the marshal. He raised his heavy head and regarded Donal intently. "Something up?"
"A number of things," agreed Donal. He took the bare float beside the desk that Gait motioned him into. "May I ask if William came here tonight with the intention of transacting any business with you?"
"You may ask," answered Gait, putting both his massive forearms on the desk, "but I don't know why I should answer you."
"Of course you needn't," said Donal. "Assuming he did, however, I'd like to say that in my opinion it would be exceedingly unwise to do any business with Ceta at this time—and particularly William of Ceta."
"And what causes this to be your opinion?" asked Gait, with a noticeable trace of irony. Donal hesitated.
"Sir," he said, after a second. "I'd like to remind you that I was right on Harmony, and right about Newton; and that I may be right here, as well."
It was a large pill of impertinence for the marshal to swallow; since, in effect, it pointed out that if Donal had twice been right, Gait had been twice wrong— first about his assessment of Hugh Killien as a re-sponsible officer, and second about his assessment of the reasons behind the Newtonian move on Oriente. But if he was Dorsai enough to be touchy about his pride, he was also Dorsai enough to be honest when he had to.
"All right," he said. "William did come around with a proposition. He wants to take over a large number of our excess land forces, not for any spe-cific campaign, but for re-leasing to other employers. They'd remain our troops. I was against it, on the grounds that we'd be competing against ourselves when it came to offering troops to outside markets, but he proved to me the guarantee he's willing to pay would more than make up for any losses we might have. I also didn't see how he intended to make his own profit out of it, but evidently he intends training the men to finer specializations than a single planet can afford to do, and maintain a balanced force. And God knows Ceta's big enough to train all he wants, and that its slightly lower gravity doesn't hurt either—for our troops, that is."
He got his pipe out of a compartment in the desk and began to fill it.
"What's your objection?" he asked.
"Can you be sure the troops won't be leased to someone who might use them against you?" Donal asked.
Gait's thick fingers ceased suddenly to fill his pipe. "We can insist on guarantees."
"But how much good are guarantees in a case like that?" asked Donal. "The man who gives you the guarantee—William—isn't the man who might move the troops against you. If Freilander leased troops were suddenly found attacking Freilander soil, you might gain the guarantee, but lose the soil."
Gait frowned.
"I still don't see," he said, "how that could work out to William's advantage."
"It might," said Donal, "in a situation where what he stood to gain by Freilander fighting Freilander was worth more than the guarantee."
"How could that be?"
Donal hesitated on the verge of those private suspicions of his own. Then he decided that they were not yet solid enough to voice to the marshal; and might, indeed, even weaken his argument.
"I don't know," he replied. "However, I think it'd be wise not to take the chance."
"Hah!" Gait snorted and his fingers went back to work, filling the pipe. "You don't have to turn the man down—and justify your refusal to Staff and Government."
"I don't propose that you turn him down outright," said Donal. "I suggest you only hesitate. Say that in your considered opinion the interstellar situation right now doesn't justify your leaving Freiland short-handed of combat troops. Your military reputation is good enough to establish such an answer beyond question."
"Yes"—Gait put the pipe in his mouth and lit it thoughtfully—"I think I may just act on that recommendation of yours. You know, Donal, I think from now on you better remain as my aide, where I can have the benefit of your opinions handy when I need them."
Donal winced.
"I'm sorry, sir," he said. "But I was thinking of moving on—if you'll release me."
Gait's eyebrows abruptly drew together in a thicket of dense hair. He took the pipe from his mouth.
"Oh," he said, somewhat flatly. "Ambitious, eh?"
"Partly," said Donal. "But partly—I'll find it easier to oppose William as a free agent.". Gait bent a long, steady look upon him.
"By heaven," he said, "what is this personal vendetta of yours against William?"
"I'm afraid of him," answered Donal,
"Leave him alone and he'll certainly leave you alone. He's got bigger fish to fry—" Gait broke off, jammed his pipe into his mouth and bit hard on the stem.
"I'm afraid," said Donal, sadly, "there are some men between the stars that are just not meant to leave each other alone." He straightened in his chair. "You'll release my contract, then?"
"I won't hold any man against his will," growled the marshal. "Except in an emergency. Where were you thinking of going?"
"I've had a number of offers," said Donal. "But I was thinking of accepting one from the Joint Church Council of Harmony and Association. Their Chief Elder's offered me the position of War Chief for both the Friendlies."
"Eldest Bright? He's driven every commander with a spark of independence away from him."
"I know," said Donal. "And just for that reason I expect to shine the more brightly. It should help build my reputation."
"By—" Gait swore softly. "Always thinking, aren't you?"
"I suppose you're right," said Donal, a trifle unhappily. "It comes of being born with a certain type of mind."
WAR CHIEF
The heels of his black boots clicking against the gray floor of the wide office of the Defense Headquarters on Harmony, the aide approached Donal's desk, which had been his home for three years now.
"Special, urgent and private, sir." He placed a signal tape in the blue shell of ordinary communications on the desk pad.
"Thank you," said Donal, and waved him off. He broke the seal on the tape, placed it in his desk unit, and—waiting until the aide had left the room— pressed the button that would start it.
His father's voice came from the speaker, deep-toned.
"Donal, my son—
"We were glad to get your last tape; and to hear of your successes. No one in this family has done so well in such a short time, in the last five generations. We are all happy -for you here, and pray for you and wait to hear from you again.
"But I am speaking to you now on an unhappy occasion. Your uncle, Kensie, was assassinated shortly over a month ago in the back streets of the city of Blauvain, on St. Marie, by a local terrorist group in opposition to the government there. lan, who was, of course, an officer in the same unit, later somehow managed to discover the headquarters of the group in some alley or other and killed the three men he found there with his hands. However, this does not bring Kensie back. He was a favorite of us all; and we are all hard hit, here at home, by his death.
"It is lan, however, who is presently the cause of our chief concern. He brought Kensie's body home, refusing burial on St. Marie, and has been here now several weeks. You know he was always the dark-natured of the twins, just as it seemed that Kensie had twice the brightness and joy in life that is the usual portion of the normal man. Your mother says it is now as if lan had lost his good angel, and is abandoned to the forces of darkness which have always had such a grip on him.
"She does not say it in just that way, of course. It is the woman and the Maran in her, speaking—but I have not lived with her twenty-seven years without realizing that she can see further into the soul of a man or woman than I can. You have in some measure inherited this same gift, Donal; so maybe you will understand better what she means. At any rate, it is at her urging that I am sending you this signal; al- though I would have been speaking to you about Kensie's death, in any case.
"As you know, it has always been my belief that members of the same immediate family should not serve too closely together in field or garrison—in order mat family feelings should not be tempted to influence military responsibilities. But it is your mother's belief that lan should not now be allowed to sit in his dark silence about the place, as he has been doing; but that he should be once more in action. And she asks me to ask you if you could find a place for him on your staff, where you can keep your eye on him. I know it will be difficult for both of you to have him filling a duty post in a position subordinate to you; but your mother feels it would be preferable to the present situation.
"lan has expressed no wish to return to an active life; but if I speak to him as head of the family, he will go. Your brother Mor is doing well on Venus and has recently been promoted to commandant. Your mother urges you to write him, whether he has written you or not, since he may be hesitant to write you without reason, you having done so well in so short a time, although he is the older.
"All our love. Eachan."
The spool, seen through the little transparent cover, stopped turning. The echoes of Eachan Khan Graeme's voice died against the gray walls of the office. Donal sat still at his desk, his eyes fixed on nothing, remembering Kensie.
It seemed odd to him, as he sat there, to discover that he could remember so few specific incidents. Thinking back, his early life seemed to be filled with his smiling uncle—and yet Kensie had not been home much. He would have thought that it would be the separate occasions of Kensie's going and coming that would be remembered—but instead it was more as if some general presence, some light about the house, had been extinguished.
Donal sighed. It seemed he was accumulating people at a steady rate. First Lee. Then the scarfaced El Man had asked to accompany him, when he left Freiland. And now lan. Well, lan was a good officer, aside from whatever crippling the death of his twin brother had caused him now. It would be more than easy for Donal to find a place for him. In fact, Donal could use him handily.
Donal punched a stud and turned his mouth to the little grille of the desk's signal unit.
"Eachan Khan Graeme, Graeme-house, South District, Foralie Canton, the Dorsai," he said. "Very glad to hear from you, although I imagine you know how I feel about Kensie. Please ask lan to come right along. I will be honored to have him on my staff; and, to tell the truth, I have a real need for someone like him here. Most of the ranking officers I inherited as War Chief have been browbeaten by these Elders into a state of poor usefulness. I know I won't have to worry about lan on that score. If he would take over supervision of my training program, he would be worth his weight in diamonds—natural ones. And I could give him an action post either on my personal staff, or as Patrol Chief. Tell Mother I'll write Mor but that the letter may be a bit sketchy right at present I am up to my ears in work at the moment These are good officers and men; but they have been so beaten about the ears at every wrong move mat they will not blow their nose without a direct order. My love to all at home. Donal." He pressed the button again, ending the recording and sealing it ready for delivery with the rest of the outgoing signals his office sent daily on their way. A soft chime from his desk reminded him that it was time for him to speak once more with Eldest Bright. He got up and went out
The ranking elder of the joint government of the Friendly Worlds of Harmony and Association maintained his own suite of offices in Government Center, not more than half a hundred meters from the military nerve center. This was not fortuitous. Eldest Bright was a Militant, and liked to keep his eye on the fighting arm of God's True Churches. He was at work at his desk, but rose as Donal came in.
He advanced to meet Donal, a tall, lean man, dressed entirely in black, with the shoulders of a back-alley scrapper and the eyes of a Torquemada, that light of the Inquisition in ancient Spain.
"God be with you," he said. "Who authorized this requisition order for sheathing for the phase shift grids on the sub-class ships?"
"I did," said Donal.
"You spend credit like water." Bright's hard, middle-aged face leaned toward Donal. "A tithe on the churches, a tithe of a tithe on the church members of our two poor planets is all we have to support the business of government. How much of this do you think we can afford to spend on whims and fancies?"
"War, sir," said Donal, "is hardly a matter of whims and fancies."
"Then why shield the grids?" snapped Bright. "Are they liable to rust in the dampness of space? Will a wind come along between the stars and blow them apart?"
"Sheathe, not shield," replied Donal. "The point is to change their appearance; from the ball-and-hammer to the cylindrical. I'm taking all ships of the first three classes through with me. When they come out before the Exotics, I want them all looking like ships of the first class."
"For what reason?"
"Our attack on Zombri cannot be a complete surprise," explained Donal, patiently, "Mara and Kultis are as aware as anyone else that from a military standpoint it is vulnerable to such action. If you'll permit me—" He walked past Bright to the latter's desk and pressed certain keys there. A schematic of the Procyon system sprang into existence on one of the large gray walls of the office, the star itself in outline to the left. Pointing, Donal read off the planets in their order, moving off to the right. "Mara— Kultis—Ste. Marie-Coby. As close a group of habitable planets as we're likely to discover in the next ten generations. And simply because they are habitable—and close, therefore—we have this escaped moon, Zombri, in its own eccentric orbit lying largely between Coby and St. Marie—"
"Are you lecturing me?" interrupted Bright's harsh voice.
"I am," said Donal. "It's been my experience that the things people tend to overlook are those they learned earliest and believe they know best. Zombri is not habitable and too small for terraforming. Yet it exists like the Trojan horse, lacking only its complement of latter-day Acheans to threaten the Procyon peace—"
"We've discussed this before," broke in Bright.
"And we'll continue to discuss it," continued Donal, pleasantly, "whenever you wish to ask for the reason behind any individual order of mine. As I was saying—Zombri is the Trojan horse of the Procyon city. Unfortunately, in this day and age, we can hardly smuggle men onto it. We can, however, make a sudden landing in force and attempt to set up defenses before the Exotics are alerted. Our effort, then, must be to make our landing as quickly and effectively as possible. To do that best is to land virtually unopposed in spite of the fact that the Exotics will undoubtedly have a regular force keeping its eye on Zombri. The best way to achieve that is to appear in overwhelming strength, so mat the local commanders will realize it is foolish to attempt to interfere with our landing. And the best way to put on a show of strength is to appear to have three times the ships of the first class mat we do have. Therefore the sheathing."
Donal stopped talking, walked back across to the desk, and pressed the keys. The schematic disappeared.
"Very well," said Bright. The tone of his voice showed no trace of defeat or loss of arrogance. "I will authorize the order."
' "Perhaps," said Donal, "you'll also authorize another order to remove the Conscience Guardians from my ships and units."
"Heretics—" began Bright.
"Are no concern of mine," said Donal. "My job is to get these people ready to mount an assault. But I've got over sixty per cent native troops of yours under me; and their morale is hardly being improved, on an average of three trials for heresy a week."
"This is a church matter," said Bright. "Is there anything else you wished to ask me, War Chief?"
"Yes," said Donal. "I ordered mining equipment. It hasn't arrived."
"The order was excessive," said Bright. "There should be no need to dig in anything but the command posts, on Zombri."
Donal looked at the black-clad man for a long moment. His white face and white hands—the only uncovered part of him—seemed rather the false part than the real, as if they were mask and gloves attached to some black and alien creature.
"Let's understand each other," said Donal. "Aside from the fact that I don't order men into exposed positions where they'll be killed—whether they're mercenaries or your own suicide-happy troops, just what do you want to accomplish by this move against the Exotics?"
"They threaten us," answered Bright. "They are worse than the heretics. They are Satan's own legion—the deniers of God." The man's eyes glittered like ice m the sunlight. "We must establish a watchtower over them that they may not threaten us without warning; and we may live in safety."
"All right," said Donal. "That's settled then. I'll get you your watchtower. And you get me the men and equipment I order without question and without delay. Already, these hesitations of your government mean I'll be going into Zombri ten to fifteen per cent understrength."
"What?" Bright's dark brows drew together. "You've got two months yet until Target Date."
"Target Dates," said Donal, "are for the benefit of enemy intelligence. We'll be jumping off in two weeks."
"Two weeks!" Bright stared at him. "You can't be ready in two weeks." "I earnestly hope Colmain and his General Staff
"They've the best land and space forces between the stars."
"How?" Bright's face paled with anger. "You dare to say that our own organization's inferior?"
"Facing facts is definitely preferable to facing defeat," said Donal, a iittle tiredly. "Yes, Eldest, our forces are definitely inferior. Which is why I'm de-- pending on surprise rather than preparation."
"The Soldiers of the Church are the bravest in the universe!" cried Bright. "They wear the armor of righteousness and never retreat."
"Which explains their high casualty rate, regular : necessity for green replacements, and general lower tevel of training," Donal reminded him. "A willingness to die in battle is not necessarily the best trait in j * a soldier. Your mercenary units, where you've kept '";•' them free of native replacements, are decidedly more combat-ready at the moment. Do I have your backing from now on, for anything I fee! I need?"
Bright hesitated. The tension of fanaticism relaxed out of his face, to be replaced by one of thoughtful-ness. When he spoke again his voice was cold and businesslike.
"On everything but the Conscience Guardians," he answered. "They have authority, after all, only over our own Members of the Churches." He turned and walked around once more behind his desk. "Also," he said, a trifle grimly, "you may have noticed that there are sometimes small differences of opinion concerning dogma between members of differing Churches. The presence of the Conscience Guardians among them makes them less prone to dispute, one with the other—and this you'll grant, I'm sure, is an aid to military discipline."
"It's effective," said Donal, shortly. He turned himself to go. "Oh, by the way, Eldest," he said. "That true Target Date of two weeks from today. It's essential it remain sectet; so I've made sure it's known only to two men and will remain their knowledge exclusively until an hour or so before jump-off."
Bright's head came up.
"Who's the other?" he demanded sharply.
"You, sir," said Donal. "I just made my decision about the true date a minute ago."
They locked eyes for a long minute.
"May God be with you," said Bright, in cold, even tones.
Donal went out.
WAR CHIEF II
Geneve bar-Colmain was, as Donal had said, commander of the best land-and-space forces between the stars. This because the Exotics of Mara and Kultis, though they would do no violence in their own proper persons, were wise enough to hire the best available in the way of military strength. Colmain, himself, was one of the top military minds of his time, along with Gait on Freiland, Kamal on the Dorsai, Isaac on Venus, and that occasional worker of military miracles—Dom Yen, Supreme Commander on the single world of Ceta where William had his home office. Colmain had his troubles (including a young wife who no longer cared for him) and his faults (he was a gambler—in a military as well as a monetary sense) but there was nothing f wtong with either the intelligence that had its home in his skull, or the Intelligence that made its headquarters in his Command Base, on Mara.
Consequently, he was aware that the Friendly Worlds were preparing for a landing on Zombri within three weeks of the time when the decision to do so had become an accomplished fact. His spies adequately informed him of the Target Date that had been established for that landing; and he himself set about certain plans of his own for welcoming the invaders when they came.
The primary of these was the excavation of strong points on Zombri, itself. The assault troops would find they had jumped into a hornet's nest. The ships of the Exotic fleet would meanwhile be on alert not too far off. As soon as action had joined on the surface of Zombri, they would move in and drive the space forces of the invasion inward. The attackers would be caught between two fires; their assault troops lacking the chance to dig in and their ships lacking the support from below that entrenched ground forces could supply with moon-based heavy weapons.
The work on the strong points was well under way one day as, at the Command Base, back on Mara, Colmain was laying out a final development of strategy with his General Staff. An interruption occurred in the shape of an aide who came hurrying into the conference room without even the formality of asking permission first.
"What's this?" growled Coimain, looking up from the submitted plans before him with a scowl on his swarthy face, which at sixty was still handsome enough to provide him compensation in the way of other female companionship for his wife's lack of interest.
"Sir," said the aide, "Zombri's attacked—"
"What?" Colmain was suddenly on his feet; and Ibe rest of the heads of the General Staff with him.
"Over two hundred ships, sir. We just got the signal." The aide's voice cracked a little—he was still in his early twenties. "Our men on Zombri are fighting with what they have—"
"Fighting?" Colmain took a sudden step toward the aide almost as if he would hold the man personally responsible. "They've started to land assault troops?"
"They've landed, sir—"
"How many?"
"We don't know sir—"
"Knucklehead! How many ships went in to drop men?"
"None, sir," gasped the aide. "They didn't drop any men. They all landed."
"Landed?"
I?or the fraction of a second, there was no sound at all in the long conference room.
"Do you mean to tell me—" shouted Colmain. They landed two hundred ships of the first class on Zombri?"
"Yes, sir," the aide's voice had thinned almost to a squeak. "They're cleaning out our forces there and png in—"
He had no chance to finish. Colmain swung about on his Battle Ops and Patrol Chiefs.
"Hell and damnation!" he roared. "Intelligence!"
"Sir?" answered a Freilander officer halfway down the length of the table.
"What's the meaning of this?"
"Sir—" stammered the officer. "I don't know how it happened. The latest reports I had from Harmony, three days ago—"
"Damn the latest reports. I want every ship and every man we can get into space in five hours! I want every patrol ship of any class to rendezvous with everything we can muster here, off Zombri in ten hours. Move!"
The General Staff of the Exotics moved.
It was a tribute to the kind of fighting force that Colmain commanded that they were able to respond at all in so short a time as ten hours to such orders. The fact that they accomplished the rendezvous with nearly four hundred craft of all classes, all carrying near their full complement of crews and assault troops, was on the order of a minor miracle.
Colmain and his chief officers, aboard the flagship, regarded the moon, swimming below them in the Control Eye of the ship. There had been reports of fighting down there up until three hours ago. Now there was a silence that spoke eloquently of captured troops. In addition, Observation reported—in addition to the works instigated by the Exotic forces— another hundred and fifty newly mined entrances in the crust of the moon.
"They're in there," said Colmain, "ships and all."
Now that the first shock of discovery had passed, he was once more a cool and capable commander of forces. He had even found time to make a mental note to get together with this Dorsal, Graeme. Supreme command was always sweet bait to a brilliant youngster; but he would find the Council of United Churches a difficult employer in time—and the drawback of a subordinate position under Colmain himself could be compensated for by the kind of salary the Exotics were always willing to pay. Concerning the outcome of the actual situation before him, Colmain saw no real need for fear, only for haste. It was fairly obvious now mat Graeme had risked everything on one bold swoop. He had counted on surprise to get him onto the moon and so firmly entrenched there that the cost of rooting him out would be prohibitive—before reinforcements could arrive.
He had erred only—and Colmain gave him full credit for all but that single error—in underestimating the time it would take for Colmain to gather his strength to retaliate. And even that error was forgive-able. There was no other force on the known worlds that could have been gotten battle-ready in under three times the time.
"We'll go in," said Colmain. "All of us—and fight it out on the moon." He looked around his officers. "Any comment?"
"Sir," said his Blue Patrol chief, "maybe we could wait them out up here?"
"Don't you think it," said Colmain, good-humoredly. "Tney would not come and dig in, in our own system, without being fully supplied for long enough to establish an outpost we can't take back." He shook his head. "The time to operate is now, gentlemen, before the infection has a chance to get its hold AH ships down— even the ones without assault troops. We'll fight them as if they were ground emplacements."
His staff saluted and went off to execute his orders.
The Exotic fleet descended on the moon of Zombri like locusts upon an orchard. Colmain, pacing the floor of the control room in the flagship—which had gone in with the rest—grinned as the reports began to flood in of strong points quickly cleaned of the Friendly troops that had occupied them—or dug in ships quickly surrendering and beginning to dig themselves out of the deep shafts their mining equipment had provided for them. The invading troops were collapsing like cardboard soldiers; and Colmain's opinion of their commander—which had risen sharply with the first news of the attack—began to slip decidedly. It was one thing to gamble boldly; it was quite another to gamble foolishly. It appeared from the morale and quality of the Friendly troops that there had, after all, been little chance of the surprise attack succeeding. This Graeme should have devoted a little more time to training his men and less to dreaming up dramatic actions. It was, Colmain thought, very much what you might expect of a young commander in supreme authority for the first time in his life.
He was enjoying the roseate glow of anticipated victory when it was suddenly all rudely shattered. There was a sudden ping from the deep-space communicator and suddenly two officers at the board spoke at once.
"Sir, unidentified call from—"
"Sir, ships above us—"
Colmain, who had been watching the Zombri surface through his Control Eye, jabbed suddenly at his buttons and the seeker circuit on it swung him dizzily upward and toward the stars, coming to rest abruptly, on full magnification, on a ship of the first class which unmistakably bore the mark of Friendly design and manufacture. Incredulously, he widened his scope, and in one swift survey, picked out more than twenty such ships in orbit around Zombri, within the limited range of his ground-restricted Eye, alone.
"Who is it?" he shouted, turning on the officer who had reported a call.
"Sir—" the officer's voice was hesitantly incredulous, "he says he's the Commander of the Friendlies."
"What?" Colmain's fist came down on a stud beside the controls of the Eye. A wall screen lit up and a lean young Dorsai with odd, indefinite-colored eyes looked out at him.
"Graeme!" roared Colmain. "What kind of an imitation fleet are you trying to bluff me with?"
"Look again, commander," answered the young man. "The imitation are digging their way out down there on the surface by you. They're my sub-class ships. Why'd you think they would be taken so eas- ily? These are my ships of the first class—one hundred and eighty-three of them."
Colmain jammed down the button and blanked the screen. He turned on his officers at the control panel.
"Report!"
But the officers had already been busy. Confirmations were flooding in. The first of the attacking ships had been dug out and proved to be sub-class ships with sheathing around their phase-shift grids, little weapons, and less armor. Colmain swung back to the screen again, activated it, and found Donal in the same position, waiting for him.
"We'll be up to see you in ten minutes," he promised, between his teeth.
"You've got more sense than that, commander," replied Donal, from the screen. "Your ships aren't even dug in. They're sitting ducks as they are; and in no kind of formation to cover each other as they try to jump off. We can annihilate you if you try to climb up here, and lying as you are we can pound you to pieces on the ground. You're not equipped from the standpoint of supplies to dig in there; and I'm well enough informed about your total strength to know you've got no force left at large that's strong enough to do us any damage." He paused. "I suggest you come up here yourself in a single ship and discuss terms of surrender."
Colmain stood, glaring at the screen. But there was, in fact, no alternative to surrender. He would not have been a commander of the caliber he was, if he had not recognized the fact. He nodded, finally, grudgingly.
"Coming up," he said; and blanked the screen. Shoulders a little humped, he went off to take the little courier boat that was attached to the flagship for his own personal use.
"By heaven," were the words with which he greeted Donal, when he at last came face to face with him aboard the Friendly flagship, "you've ruined me. I'll be lucky to get the command of five C-class and a tender, on Dunnin's World, after this."
It was not far from the truth.
Donal returned to Harmony two days later, and was cheered in triumph even by the sourest of that world's fanatics, as he rode through the streets to Government Center. A different sort of reception awaited him there, however, when he arrived and went alone to report to Eldest Bright.
The head of the United Council of Churches for the worlds of Harmony and Association looked up grimly as Dona! came in, still wearing the coverall of his battle dress under a barrel-cut jacket he had thrown on hastily for the ride from the spaceport. The platform on which he had ridden had been open for the admiration of the crowds along the way; and Harmony was in the chill fall of its short year.
"Evening, gentlemen," said Donal, taking in not only Bright in the greeting, but two other members of the Council who sat alongside him at his desk. These two did not answer. Donal had hardly expected them to. Bright was in charge here. Bright nodded at three armed soldiers of the native elite guard that had been holding post by the door and they went out, closing the door behind them.
"So you've come back," said Bright.
Donal smiled.
"Did you expect me to go some place else?" he asked.
"This is no time for humor!" Bright's large hand came down with a crack on the top of the desk. "What kind of an explanation have you got for us, for this outrageous conduct of yours?"
"If you don't mind, Eldest!" Donal's voice rang against the gray walls of the room, with a slight cutting edge the three had never heard before and hardly expected on this occasion. "I believe in politeness and good manners for myself; and see no reason why others shouldn't reciprocate in kind. What're you talking about9"
Bright rose. Standing wide-legged and shoulder-bent above the smooth, almost reflective surface of the gray desk, the resemblance to the back-alley scrapper for the moment outweighed the Torquemada in his appearance.
"You come back to us," he said, slowly and harshly, "and pretend not to know how you betrayed us?"
"Betrayed you?" Donal considered him with a quietness that was almost ominous. "How—betrayed you?"
"We sent you out to do a job."
"I believe I did it," said Donal dryly. "You wanted a watchtower over the Godless. You wanted a permanent installation on Zombri to spot any buildup on the part of the Exotics to attack you. You remember I asked you to set out in plain terms what you were after, a few days back. You were quite explicit about that being just what you wanted. Well—you've got it!"
"You limb of Satan!" blared Bright, suddenly losing control. "Do you pretend to believe that you thought that was all we wanted? Did you mink the anointed of the Lord would hesitate on the threshold of the Godless?" He turned and stalked suddenly around the desk to stand face to face with Donal. "You had them in your power and you asked them only for an unarmed observation station on a barren moon. You had them by the throat and you slew none of them when you should have wiped them from the face of the stars, to the last ship—to the last man!"
He paused and Donal could hear his teeth gritting in the sudden silence.
"How much did they pay you?" Bright snarled.
Donal stood in an unnatural stillness.
"I will pretend," he said, after a moment, "that I didn't hear that last remark. As for your questions as to why I asked only for the observation station, that was all you had said you wanted. As to why I did not wipe them out—wanton killing is not my trade. Nor the needless expenditure of my own men in the pursuit of wanton killing." He looked coldly into Blight's eyes. "I suggest you could have been a little more honest with me, Eldest, about what you wanted. It was the destruction of the Exotic power, wasn't it?"
"It was," gritted Bright.
"I thought as much," said Donal. "But it never occurred to you that I would be a good enough commander to find myself in the position to accomplish that. I think," said Donal, letting his eyes stray to the other two black-clad elders as well, "you are hoist by your own petard, gentlemen." He relaxed; and smiling slightly, turned back to Bright. "There are reasons," he said, "why it would be very unwise tactically for the Friendly Worlds to break the back of Mara and Kultis. If you'll allow me to give you a small lesson in power dis—"
"You'll come up with better answers than you have!" burst out Bright. "Unless you want to be tried for betrayal of your employer!"
"Oh, come now!" Donal laughed out loud.
Bright whirled away from him and strode across the gray room. Flinging wide the door by which Donal had entered, and they had exited, he revealed the three elite guard soldiers. He whirled about, arm outstretched to its full length, finger quivering.
"Arrest that traitor!" he cried.
The guards took a step toward Donal—and in that same moment, before they had any of them moved their own length's-worth of distance toward him— three faint blue beams traced their way through the intervening space past Bright, leaving a sharp scent of ionized air behind them. And the three dropped.
Like a man stunned by a blow from behind, Bright stared down at the bodies of his three guards. He swayed about to see Donal reholstering his handgun.
"Did you think I was fool enough to come here unarmed?" asked Donal, a little sadly. "And did you think I'd submit to arrest?" He shook his head. "You should have wit enough to see now I've just saved you from yourselves."
He looked at their disbelieving faces.
"Oh, yes," he said. He gestured to the open wall at the far end of the office. Sounds of celebration from the city outside drifted lightly in on the evening breeze. "The better forty per cent of your fighting forces are out there. Mercenaries. Mercenaries who appreciate a commander who can give them a victory at the cost of next to no casualties at all. What do you suppose their reaction would be if you tried me for betrayal, and found me guilty, and had me executed?" He paused to let the thought sink in. "Consider it, gentlemen."
He pinched his jacket shut and looked grimly at the three dead elite guards; and then turned back to the elders, again.
"I consider this sufficient grounds for breach of contract," he said. "You can find yourself another War Chief."
He turned and walked toward the door. As he passed through it, Bright shouted after him.
"Go to them, then! Go to the Godless on Mara and Kultis!"
Donal paused and turned. He inclined his head gravely.
"Thank you, gentlemen," he said. "Remember— The suggestion was yours."
PART-MARAN
There remained the interview with Sayona the Bond. Going up some wide and shallow steps into the establishment—it could not be called merely a building, or group of buildings—that housed the most important individual of the two Exotic planets, Donal found cause for amusement in the manner of his approach.
Farther out, among some shrubbery at the entrance to the—estate?—he had encountered a tall, gray-eyed woman; and explained his presence.
"Go right ahead," the woman had said, waving him onward. "You'll find him." The odd part of it was, Donal had no doubt that he would. And the unreasonable certainty of it tickled his own strange sense of humor.
He wandered on by a sunlit corridor that broad- ened imperceptibly into a roofless garden, past paintings, and pools of water with colorful fish in them— through a house that was not a house, in rooms and out until he came to a small sunken patio, half-roofed over; and at the far end of it, under the shade of the half-roof, was a tall bald man of indeterminate age, wrapped in a blue robe and seated on a little patch of captive turf, surrounded by a low, stone wall.
Donal went down three stone steps, across the patio, and up the three stone steps at the far side until he stood over the tall, seated man.
"Sir," said Donal. "I'm Donal Graeme."
The tall man waved him down on the turf.
"Unless you'd rather sit on the wall, of course," he smiled. "Sitting cross-legged doesn't agree with everyone."
"Not at all, sir," answered Donal, and sat down cross-legged himself.
"Good," said the tall man; and apparently lost himself in thought, gazing out over the patio.
Donal also relaxed, waiting. A certain peace had crept into him in the way through this place. It seemed to beckon to meditation; and—Donal had no doubt—was probably cleverly constructed and designed for just that purpose. He sat, comfortably now, and let his mind wander where it chose; and it happened—not so oddly at all—to choose to wander in the direction of the man beside him.
Sayona the Bond, Donal had learned as a boy in school, was one of the human institutions peculiar to the Exotics. The Exotics were two planetsful of strange people, judged by the standards of the rest of the human race—some of whom went so far as to wonder if the inhabitants of Mara and Kultis had developed wholly and uniquely out of the human race, after all. This, however, was speculation half in humor and half in superstition. In truth, they were human enough.
They had, however, developed their own forms of wizardry. Particularly in the fields of psychology and its related branches, and in that other field which you could call gene selection or planned breeding depending on whether you approved or disapproved of it. Along with this went a certain sort of general mysticism. The Exotics worshiped no god, overtly, and laid claim to no religion. On the other hand they were nearly all—they claimed, by individual choice—vegetarians and adherents of nonviolence on the ancient Hindu order. In addition, however, they held to another cardinal nonprinciple; and this one was the principle of noninterference. The ultimate violence, they believed, was for one person to urge a point of view on another—in any fashion of urging. Yet, all these traits had not destroyed their ability to take care of themselves. If it was their creed to do violence to no man, it was another readily admitted part of their same creed that no one should therefore be wantonly permitted to do violence to them. In war and business, through mercenaries and middlemen, they more than held their own.
But, thought Donal—to get back to Sayona the Bond, and his place in Exotic culture. He was one of the compensations peculiar to the Exotic peoples, for their different way of life. He was—in some way that only an Exotic fully understood—a certain part of their emotional life made manifest in the person of a living human being. Like Anea, who—devastatingly normal and female as she was—was, to an Exotic, literally one of the select of Kultis. She was their best selected qualities made actual—like a living work of art that they worshiped. It did not matter that she was not always joyful, that indeed, her life must bear as much or more of the normal human sorrow of situation and existence. That was where most people's appreciation of the matter went astray. No, what was important was the capabilities they had bred and trained into her. It was the capacity in her for living, not the life she actually led, that pleasured them. The actual achievement was up to her, and was her own personal reward. They appreciated the fact that—if she chose, and was lucky—she could appreciate life. Similarly, Sayona the Bond. Again, only in a sense mat an Exotic would understand, Sayona was the actual bond between their two worlds made manifest in flesh and blood. In him was the capability for common understanding, for reconciliation, for an expression of the community of feeling between people ...
Donal awoke suddenly to the fact that Sayona was speaking to him. The older man had been speaking some time, in a calm, even voice, and Donal had been letting the words run through his mind like water of a stream through his ringers. Now, something that had been said had jogged him to a full awareness.
"... Why, no," answered Donal, "I thought this was standard procedure for any commander before you hired him."
Sayona chuckled.
"Put every new commander through all that testing and trouble?" he said. "No, no. The word would get around and we'd never be able to hire the men we wanted."
"I rather enjoy taking tests," said Donal, idly.
"I know you do," Sayona nodded. "A test is a form of competition, after all; and you're a competitor by nature. No, normally when we want a military man we look for military proofs like everyone else— and that's as far as we go."
"Why the difference with me, then''" asked Donal, turning to look at him. Sayona returned his gaze with pale brown eyes holding just a hint of humor in the wrinkles at their corners.
"Well, we weren't just interested in you as a commander," answered Sayona. "There's the matter of your ancestors, you know. You're actually part-Maran; and those genes, even when outmatched, are of interest to us. Then there's the matter of you, yourself. You have astonishing potentials."
"Potentials for what?"
"A number of rather large things," said Sayona soberly. "We only glimpse them, of course, in the results of our tests."
"Can I ask what those large things are?" asked Donal, curiously.
"I'm sorry, no. I can't answer that for you," said Sayona. "The answers would be meaningless to you personally, anyway—for the reason you can't explain anything in terms of itself. That's why I thought I'd have this talk with you. I'm interested in your philosophy."
"Philosophy!" Donal laughed. "I'm a Dorsai."
"Everyone, even Dorsai, every living thing has its own philosophy—a blade of grass, a bird, a baby. An individual philosophy is a necessary thing, the touchstone by which we judge our own existence. Also— you're only part Dorsai. What does the other part say?"
Donal frowned.
"I'm not sure the other part says anything," he said. "I'm a soldier. A mercenary. I have a job to do; and I intend to do it—always—in the best way I know how."
"But beyond this—" urged Sayona.
"Why, beyond this—" Donal fell silent, still frowning. "I suppose I would want to see things go well."
"You said want to see things go well—rather than like to see things go well." Sayona was watching him. "Don't you see any significance in that?"
"Want? Oh—" Donal laughed. "I suppose that's an unconscious slip on my part. I suppose I was thinking of making them go well."
"Yes," said Sayona, but in a tone that Donal could not be sure was meant as agreement or not. "You're a doer, aren't you?"
"Someone has to be," said Donal. "Take the civi-. lized worlds now—" he broke off suddenly.
"Go on," said Sayona.
"I meant to say—take civilization. Think how short a time it's been since the first balloon went up back on Earth. Four hundred years? Five hundred years? Something like that. And look how we've spread out and split up since then." "What about it?"
"I don't like it," said Donal. "Aside from the inefficiency, it strikes me as unhealthy. What's the point of technological development if we just split in that many more factions—everyone hunting up his own type of aberrant mind and hiving with it? That's no progress."
"You subscribe to progress?" Donal looked at him. "Don't you?"
"I suppose," said Sayona. "A certain type of progress. My kind of progress. What's yours?" Donal smiled.
"You want to hear that, do you? You're right. I guess I do have a philosophy after all. You want to hear it?"
"Please," said Sayona.
"All right," said Donal. He looked out over the little sunken garden. "It goes like this—each man is a tool in his own hands. Mankind is a tool in its own hands. Our greatest satisfaction doesn't come from the rewards of our work, but from the working itself; and our greatest responsibility is to sharpen, and improve the tool that is ourselves so as to make it capable of tackling bigger jobs." He looked at Sayona. "What do you think of it?" "I'd have to think about it," answered Sayona.
**My own point of view is somewhat different, of course. I see Man not so much as an achieving mechanism, but as a perceptive link in the order of things. I would say the individual's role isn't so much to do as it is to be. To realize to the fullest extent the truth already and inherently in him—if I make myself clear."
"Nirvana as opposed to Valhalla, eh?" said Donal, smiling a little grimly. 'Thanks, I prefer Valhalla."
"Are you sure?' asked Sayona. "Are you quite sure you've no use for Nirvana?"
"Quite sure," said Donal.
"You make me sad," said Sayona, somberly. "We had had hopes."
"Hopes?"
'There is," said Sayona, lifting one finger, "this possibility in you—this great possibility. It may be exercised in only one direction—that direction you choose. But you have freedom of choice. There's room for you here."
"With you?"
"The other worlds don't know," said Sayona,
**what we've begun to open up here in the last hundred years. We are just beginning to work with the butterfly implicit hi the matter-bound worm that is the present human species. There are great opportunities for anyone with the potentialities for this work."
"And I," said Donal, "have these potentialities?" "Yes," answered Sayona. "Partly as a result of a lucky genetic accident that is beyond our knowledge to understand, now. Of course—you would have to be retrained. That other part of your character dial rules you now would have to be readjusted to a harmonious integration with the other part we consider more valuable." Donal shook his head.
"There would be compensations," said Sayona, in a sad, almost whimsical tone, "things would become possible to you—do you know that you, personally, are the sort of man who, for example, could walk on air if only you believed you could?"
Donal laughed.
"I am quite serious," said Sayona. "Try believing it some time."
"I can hardly try believing what I instinctively disbelieve," said Donal. "Besides, that's beside the point. I am a soldier."
"But what a strange soldier," murmured Sayona. "A soldier full of compassion, of whimsical fancies and wild daydreams. A man of loneliness who wants to be like everyone else; but who finds the human race a conglomeration of strange alien creatures whose twisted ways he cannot understand—while still he understands them too well for their own comfort."
He turned his eyes calmly onto Donal's face, which had gone set and hard.
"Your tests are quite effective, aren't they?" Donal said.
"They are," said Sayona. "But there's no need to look at me like that. We can't use them as a weapon, to make you do what we would like to have you do.
That would be an action so self-crippling as to destroy all its benefits. We can only make the offer to you." He paused. "I can tell you that on the basis of our knowledge we can assure you with better than fair certainty that you'll be happy if you take our path."
"And if not?" Donal had not relaxed.
Sayona sighed.
"You are a strong man," he said. "Strength leads to responsibility, and responsibility pays little heed to happiness."
"I can't say I like the picture of myself going through life grubbing after happiness." Donal stood up. "Thanks for the offer, anyway. I appreciate the compliment it implies."
"There is no compliment in telling a butterfly he is a butterfly and need not crawl along the ground," said Sayona.
Donal inclined his head politely.
"Good-by," he said. He turned about and walked the few steps to the head of the shallow steps leading down into the sunken garden and across it to the way he had come in.
"Donal—" The voice of Sayona stopped him. He turned back and saw the Bond regarding him with an expression almost impish. "/ believe you can walk on air," said Sayona.
Donal stared; but the expression of the other did not alter. Swinging about, Donal stepped out as if onto level ground—and to his unutterable astonishment his foot met solidity on a level, unsupported, eight inches above the next step down. Hardly think- ing why he did it, Donal brought his other foot forward into nothingness. He took another step—and another. Unsupported on the thin air, he walked across above the sunken garden to the top of the steps on the far side.
Striding once more onto solidity, he turned about and looked across the short distance. Sayona still regarded him; but his expression now was unreadable. Donal swung about and left the garden.
Very thoughtful, he returned to his own quarters in the city of Portsmouth, which was the Maran city holding the Command Base of the Exotics. The tropical Maran night had swiftly enfolded the city by the time he reached his room, yet the soft illumination that had come on automatically about and inside all the buildings by some clever trick of design failed to white-out the overhead view of the stars. These shone down through the open wall of Donal's bedroom.
Standing in the center of the bedroom, about to change for the meal which would be his first of the day—he had again forgotten to eat during the earlier hours—Donal paused and frowned. He gazed up at the gently domed roof of the room, which reached its highest point some twelve feet above his head. He frowned again and searched about through his writing desk until he found a self-sealing signal-tape capsule. Then, with this in one hand, he turned toward the ceiling and took one rather awkward step off the ground.
His foot caught and held in air. He lifted himself off the floor. Slowly, step by step he walked up through nothingness to the high point of the ceiling. Opening the capsule, he pressed its self-sealing edges against the ceiling, where they clung. He hung there a second in air, staring at them.
"Ridiculous!" he said suddenly—and, just as suddenly, he was falling. He gathered himself with the instinct of long training in the second of drop and, landing on hands and feet, rolled over and came to his feet like a gymnast against a far wall. He got up, brushing himself off, unhurt—and turned to look up at the ceiling. The capsule still clung there.
He lifted the little appliance that was strapped to his wrist and keyed its phone circuit in.
"Lee," he said.
He dropped his wrist and waited. Less than a minute later, Lee came into the room. Donal pointed toward the capsule on the ceiling. "What's that?" he asked.
Lee looked.
"Tape capsule," he said. "Want me to get it down?"
"Never mind," answered Donal. "How do you suppose it got up there?"
"Some joker with a float," answered Lee. "Want me to find out who?"
"No—never mind," said Donal. "That'll be all."
Bending his head at the dismissal, Lee went out of the room. Donal took one more look at the capsule, then turned and wandered over to the open wall of his room, and looked out. Below him lay the bright carpet of the city. Overhead hung the stars. For longer than a minute he considered them.
Suddenly he laughed, cheerfully and out loud.
"No, no," he said to the empty room. "I'm a Dorsai!"
He turned his back on the view and went swiftly to work at dressing for dinner. He was surprised to discover how hungry he actually was.
PROTECTOR
Battle Commander of Field Forces lan Ten Graeme, mat cold, dark man, strode through the outer offices of the Protector of Procyon with a private-and-secret signal in his large fist. In the three outer offices, no one got hi his way. But at the entrance to the Protector's private office, a private secretary in the green-and-gold of a staff uniform ventured to murmur that the Protector had left orders to be undisturbed. lan merely looked at her, placed one palm flat against the lock of the inner office door—and strode through.
Within, he discovered Dona! standing by an open wall, caught by a full shaft of Procyon's white-gold sunlight, gazing out over Portsmouth and apparently deep in thought. It was a position in which he was to be discovered often, these later days. He looked up now at the sound of fan's measured tread approaching.
Six years of military and political successes had laid their inescapable marks upon Donal's face, marks plain to be seen in the sunlight- At a casual glance he appeared hardly older than the young man who had left the Dorsai half a dozen years before. But a closer inspection showed him to be slightly heavier of build now—even a little taller. Only this extra weight, slight increase as it was, had not served to soften the clear lines of his features. Rather these same features had grown more pronounced, more hard of line. His eyes seemed a little deeper set now; and the habit of command—command extended to the point where it became unconscious—had cast an invisible shadow upon his brows, so that it had become a face men obeyed without thinking, as if it was the natural thing to do.
"Well?" he said, as lan came up.
"They've got New Earth," his uncle answered; and handed over the signal tape. "Private-and-secret to you from Gait."
Donal took the tape automatically, that deeper, more hidden part of him immediately taking over his mind. If the six years had wrought changes upon his person and manner, they had worked to even greater ends below the surface of his being. Six years of command, six years of estimate and decision had beaten broad the path between his upper mind and that dark, oceanic part of him, the depthless waters of which lapped on all known shores and many yet unknown. He had come—you could not say to terms—but to truce with the source of his odd ness; hiding it well from others, but accepting it to himself for the sake of the tool it placed in his hands. Now, this information lan had just brought him was like one more stirring of the shadowy depths, a rippled vibration spreading out to affect all, integrate with all—and make even more clear the vast and shadowy ballet of purpose and counter-purpose that was behind all living action; and—for himself—a call to action.
As Protector of Procyon, now responsible not only for the defense of the Exotics, but of the two smaller inhabited planets in that system—St. Marie, and Coby—that action was required of him. But even more; as himself, it was required of him. So that what it now implied was not something he was eager to avoid. Rather, it was due, and welcome. Indeed, it was almost too welcome—fortuitous, even.
"I see—" he murmured. Then, lifting his face to his uncle, "Gait'11 need help. Get me some figures on available strength, will you lan?" lan nodded and went out, as coldly and martially as he had entered.
Left alone, Donal did not break open the signal tape immediately. He could not now remember what he had been musing about when lan entered, but the sight of his uncle had initiated a new train of thought. lan seemed well, these days—or at least as well as could be expected. It did not matter that he lived a sdlitary life, had little to do with the other
199* commanders of his own rank, and refused to go home to the Dorsai, even for a trip to see his family. He devoted himself to his duties of training field troops—and did it well. Aside from that, he went his own way.
The Maran psychiatrists had explained to Donal that no more than this could be expected of lan. Gently, they had explained it. A normal mind, gone sick, they could cure. The unfortunate thing was that—at least in so far as his attachment to his twin had been—lan was not normal. Nothing in this universe could replace the part of him that had died with Kensie—had, indeed, been Kensie—for the peculiar psychological make-up of the twins had made them two halves of a whole.
"Your uncle continued to live," the psychiatrists had explained to Donal, "because of an unconscious desire to punish himself for letting his brother die. He is, in fact, seeking death—but it must be a peculiar sort of death which will include the destruction of all that matters to him. 'If thy right hand offend thee, cut if off.' To his unconscious, the lan-Kensie gestalt holds the lan part of it to blame for what happened and is hunting a punishment to fit the crime. That is why he continues to practice the—for him— morbid abnormality of staying alive. The normal thing for such a personality would be to die, or get himself killed.
"And that is why," they had concluded, "he refuses to see or have anything to do with his wife or children. His unconscious recognizes the danger of pulling them down to destruction with him. We would advise against his being urged to visit them against his will."
Donal sighed. Thinking about it now, it seemed to him strange that the people who had come to group around him had none of them come—really— because of the fame he had won or the positions he could offer them. There was lan, who had come because the family had sent him. Lee, who had found the supply of that which his own faulty personality lacked—and would have followed if Donal had been Protector of nothing, instead of being Protector of Procyon. There was Lludrow, DonaTs now assistant Chief of Staff, who had come to him not under his own free will, but under the prodding of his wife. For Lludrow had ended up marrying Elvine Rhy, Gait's niece, who had not let even marriage impose a barrier to her interest in Donal. There was Geneve bar-Colmain, who was on Donal's staff because Donal had been kind; and because he had no place else to go that was worthy of his abilities. And, lastly, there was Gait, himself, whose friendship was not a military matter, but the rather wistful affection of a man who had never had a son, and saw its image in Donal—though it was not really fair to count Gait, who was apart, as still Marshal of Freiland.
And—in contradistinction to all the rest—there was Mor, the one Donal would have most liked to have at his side; but whose pride had driven him to place himself as far from his successful younger brother as possible. Mor had finally taken service with Venus, where in the open market that flourished on that technological planet, he had had his contract sold to Ceta; and now found himself in the pay of Donal's enemy, which would put them on opposite sides if conflict finally came.
Donal shook himself abruptly. These fits of depression that took him lately were becoming more frequent—possibly as a result of the long hours of work he found himself putting in. Brusquely, he broke open the signal from Gait.
Donal:
The news about New Earth will have reached you by this time. The coup d'etat that put the Kyerly government in control of the planet was engineered with troops furnished by Ceta. I have never ceased to be grateful to you for your advice against leasing out units to William. But the pattern here is a bad one. We will be facing the same sort of internal attack here through the local proponents of an open exchange for the buying and selling of contracts. One by one, the worlds are failing into the hands of manipulators, not the least of which is William himself. Please furnish us with as many field units as you can conveniently spare.
There is to be a General Planetary Discussion, meeting on Venus to discuss recognition of the new government on New Earth. They would be wise not to invite you; so come anyway. I, myself, must be there; and I need you, even if no other reason impels you to come.
Hendrik Gait Marshal, Freiland.
Donal nodded to himself. But he did not spring immediately into action. Where Gait was reacting against the shock of a sudden discovery, Donal, in the situation on New Earth, recognized only the revelation of something he had been expecting for a long time.
The sixteen inhabited worlds of the eight stellar systems from Sol to Altair survived within a complex of traded skills. The truth of the matter was that present day civilization had progressed too far for each planet to maintain its own training systems and keep up with progress in the many necessary fields. Why support a thousand mediocre school systems when it was possible to have fifty superb ones and trade the graduates for the skilled people you needed in other areas of learning? The overhead of such systems was tremendous, the number of top men in each field necessarily limited; moreover, progress was more effective if all the workers in one area of knowledge were kept closely in touch with each other.
The system seemed highly practical. Donal was one of the few men of his time to see the trouble inherent in it.
The joker to such an arrangement comes built in to the question—how much is a skilled worker an individual in his own right, and how much is he a piece of property belonging to whoever at the moment owns his contract? If he is too much an individual, barter between worlds breaks down to a series of individual negotiations; and society nowadays could not exist except on the basis of community needs. If he is too much a piece of property, then the field is opened for the manipulators—the buyers and sellers of flesh, those who would corner the manpower market and treat humanity like cattle for their own gain.
Among the worlds between the stars, this question still hung in argument. 'Tight" societies, like the technological worlds of the so-called Venus group— Venus herself, Newton and Cassida—and the fanatic worlds of Harmony and Association, and Coby, which was ruled by what amounted to a criminal secret society—had always favored the piece of property view more strongly than the individual one. "Loose" societies, like the republican worlds of Old Earth, and Mars, the Exotics—Mara and Kultis—and the violently individualistic society of the Dorsai, held to the individual side of the question. In between were the middling worlds—the ones with strong central governments like Freiland and New Earth, the merchandising world of Ceta, the democratic theocracy of St. Marie, and the pioneer, underpopulated fisher-planet of Dunnin's World, ruled by the co-operative society known as the Corbel.
Among the "tight" societies, the contract exchange mart had been in existence for many years. On these worlds, unless your contract was written with a specific forbidding clause, you might find yourself sold on no notice at all to a very different employer— possibly on a completely different world. The advantages of such a mart were obvious to an autocratic government, since the government itself was in a position to control the market through its own vast needs and resources, which no individual could hope to match. On a "loose" world, where the government was hampered by its own built in system of checks from taking advantage of opposing individual employers, the field was open for the sharp practices not only of individuals, but of other governments.
Thus, an agreement between two worlds for the establishment of a reciprocal open market worked all to the advantage of the "tighter" of the two governments—and must inevitably end in the tighter government gaining the lion's share of the talent available on the two worlds.