Soldier, Ask Not

by Gordon R. Dickson

  Eileen threw me one white-faced glance as she saw me, but then looked directly back at Mathias, who sat neither white-featured nor disturbed. His expressionless, spade-shaped face, with its thick eyebrows and thick hair, still uniformly black although he was in his late fifties, was as cold and detached as usual. He, also, looked over at me, but only casually, before turning to meet Eileen's emotional gaze.

  "I merely say," he said to her, "that I don't see why you should bother to ask me about it. I've never placed any restraints on you, or Tam. Do what you want." And his fingers closed on the book that was face down on his knees as if he would pick it up again and resume reading.

  ''Tell me what to do!'' cried Eileen. She was close to tears and her hands were clenched into fists at her side.

  "There's no point in my telling you what to do," said Mathias remotely. "Whatever you do will make no difference-to you or me, or even to this young man, over here-" he broke off and turned to me. "Oh, by the way, Tam. Eileen's forgotten to introduce you. This visitor of ours is Mr. Jamethon Black, from Harmony."

  "Force-Leader Black," said the young man turning to me his thin, expressionless face. "I'm on attache duty here."

  At that, I identified his origin. He was from one of the worlds called, in sour humor by the people of the other worlds, the Friendlies. He would be one of the religious, spartan-minded zealots who made up the population of those worlds. It was strange, very strange it seemed to me then, that of all the hundreds of types and sorts of human societies which had taken seed on the younger planets, that a society of religious fanatics should turn out, along with the soldier type of the Dorsai World, the philosopher type of the Exotics, and the hard-science-minded people of Newton and Venus, to be one of the few distinct great Splinter Cultures to grow and flourish as human colonies between the stars.

  And a distinct Splinter Culture they were. Not of soldiers, for all that the other fourteen worlds heard of them most often as that. The Dorsai were soldiers-men of war to the bone. The Friendlies were men of Devotion-if grim and hair-shirt devotion- who hired themselves out because their resource-poor worlds had little else to export for the human contractual balances that would allow them to hire needed professionals from other planets.

  There was small market for evangelists-and this was the only crop that the Friendlies grew naturally on their thin, stony soil. But they could shoot and obey orders-to the death. And they were cheap. Eldest Bright, First on the Council of Churches ruling Harmony and Association, could underbid any other government in the supplying of mercenaries. Only- never mind the military skill of those mercenaries.

  The Dorsai were true men of war. The weapons of battle came to their hands like tame dogs, and fitted their hands like gloves. The common Friendly soldier took up a gun as he might take up an axe or a hoe-as a tool needing to be wielded for his people and his church.

  So that those who knew said it was the Dorsai who supplied soldiers to the sixteen worlds. The Friendlies supplied cannon fodder.

  However, I did not speculate upon that, then. In that moment my reaction to Jamethon Black was only one of recognition. In the darkness of his appearance and his being, in the stillness of his features, the remoteness, the somehow impervious quality like that which Padma possessed-in all these I read him plainly, even without my uncle's introduction, as one of the superior breed from the younger worlds. One of those with whom, as Mathias had always proved to us, it was impossible for an Earth man to compete. But the preternatural alertness from my just-concluded experience at the Encyclopedia Project was back with me again, and it occurred to me with that same dark and inner joy that there were other ways than competition.

  ". . . Force-Leader Black," Mathias was saying, "has been taking a night course in Earth history- the same course Eileen was in-at Geneva University. He and Eileen met about a month ago. Now, your sister thinks she'd like to marry him, and go back to Harmony with him when he's transferred home at the end of this week."

  Mathias' eyes looked over at Eileen.

  "I've been telling her it's up to her, of course," he finished.

  "But I want someone to help me-help me decide what's right!" burst out Eileen piteously.

  Mathias shook his head, slowly.

  "I told you," he said, with his usual, lightless calm of voice, "that there's nothing to decide. The decision makes no difference. Go with this man-or not. In the end it'll make no difference either to you or anyone else. You may cling to the absurd notion that what you decide affects the course of events. I don't-and just as I leave you free to do as you want and play at making decisions, I insist you leave me free to do as I want, and engage in no such farce."

  With that, he picked up his book, as if he was ready to begin reading again.

  The tears began to run down Eileen's cheeks.

  "But I don't know-I don't know what to do!" she choked.

  "Do nothing then," said our uncle, turning a page of his book. "It's the only civilized course of action, anyway."

  She stood, silently weeping. And Jamethon Black spoke to her.

  "Eileen," he said, and she turned toward him. He spoke in a low, quiet voice, with just a hint of different rhythm to it. "Do you not want to marry me and make your home on Harmony?"

  "Oh, yes, Jamie!" she burst out. "Yes!"

  He waited, but she did not move toward him. She burst out again.

  "I'm just not sure it's right!" she cried. "Don't you see, Jamie, I want to be sure I'm doing the right thing. And I don't know-I don’t know!"

  She whirled about to face me.

  ' 'Tam!'' she said. * 'What should I do? Should I go? "

  Her sudden appeal to me rang in my ears like an echo of the voices that had poured in on me in the Index Room. All at once the library in which I stood and the scene within it seemed to lengthen and brighten strangely. The tall walls of bookshelves, my sister, tear-streaked, appealing to me, the silent young man in black-and my uncle, quietly reading, as if the pool of soft light about him from the shelves behind him was some magic island moated off from all human responsibilities and problems-all these seemed suddenly to reveal themselves in an extra dimension.

  It was as if I saw through them and around them all in the same moment. Suddenly I understood my uncle as I had never understood him before, understood that for all his pretense of reading he had already worked to decide which way I should jump in answer to Eileen's question.

  He knew that had he said "Stay" to my sister, I would have gotten her out of that house by main force if necessary. He knew it was my instinct to oppose him in everything. So, by doing nothing, he was leaving me nothing to fight against. He was retreating into his devil-like (or godlike) indifference, leaving me to be humanly fallible, and decide. And, of course, he believed I would second Eileen's wish to go with Jamethon Black.

  But this once he had mistaken me. He did not see the change in me, my new knowledge that pointed the way to me. To him, "Destruct!" had been only an empty shell into which he could retreat. But I now, with a sort of fever-brightness of vision, saw it as something far greater-a weapon to be turned even against these superior demons of the younger worlds.

  I looked across at Jamethon Black now, and I was not awed by him, as I had ceased to be awed by Padma. Instead, I could not wait to test my strength against him.

  "No," I said quietly to Eileen, "I don't think you should go."

  She stared at me, and I realized that unconsciously she had reasoned as my uncle had, that I must end up telling her to do what her heart wanted. But I had struck her all adrift now; and I went eagerly ahead to anchor my judgment firmly in those things she believed, choosing my words with care.

  They came easily to my mind.

  "Harmony's no place for you, Eileen," I said gently. "You know how different they are from us, here on Earth. You'd be out of place. You couldn't measure up to them and their ways. And besides, this man's a Force-Leader." I made myself look across sympathetically at Jamethon Black; and his thin face looked
back at me, as free of any resentment or pleading for my favor as the blade of an axe.

  "Do you know what that means, on Harmony?" I said. "He's an officer in their military forces. At any moment his contract may be sold, away from you. He may be sent places you can't follow. He may not come back for years-or ever at all, if he's killed, which is likely. Do you want to let yourself in for that?" And I added brutally, "Are you strong enough to take that kind of emotional punching, Eileen? I've lived with you all your life and I don't think so. You'd not only let yourself down, you'd let this man down.''

  I stopped talking. My uncle had not looked up from his book all this time, and he did not look up now; but I thought-and I took a secret satisfaction from it-that his grip upon its covers trembled a little, in betrayal of feelings he had never admitted having.

  As for Eileen, she had been staring at me unbelievingly all the time I talked. Now, she gave one heavy gasp that was almost a sob, and straightened up. She looked toward Jamethon Black.

  She did not say anything. But that look was enough. I was watching him, too, for some betraying sign of emotion; but his face only saddened a little, in a gentle way. He took two steps toward her, until he was almost standing at her side. I stiffened, ready to shove myself between them if necessary to back up my opinion. But he only spoke to her, very softly, and in that odd, canting version of ordinary speech that I had read that his people used among themselves, but which had never fallen upon my ears before.

  "Thou wilt not come with me, Eileen?" he said.

  She shook, like a light-stemmed plant in unfirm ground when a heavy step comes by, and looked away from him.

  "I can't, Jamie," she whispered. "You heard what Tam said. It's true. I'd let you down."

  "It is not true," he said, still in the same low voice.

  "Do not say you cannot. Say you will not, and I will go-"

  He waited. But she only continued to stare away from him, refusing to meet his gaze. And then, finally, she shook her head.

  He drew a deep breath at that. He had not looked at me or Mathias since I had finished speaking; and he did not look at either of us now. Still without pain or fury visible in his face, he turned and went softly out of the library, and out of the house and my sister's sight forever.

  Eileen turned and ran from the room. I looked at Mathias; and he turned a page of his book, not looking up at me. He never referred to Jamethon Black or the incident again, afterward.

  Nor did Eileen.

  But less than six months later she quietly entered her contract for sale to Cassida and was shipped off to a job on that world. A few months after she arrived she married a young man, a native of the planet named David Long Hall. Neither Mathias nor I heard about it until some months after the marriage had taken place, and then from another source. She, herself, did not write.

  But by that time I was as little concerned with the news of it as was Mathias, for my success with Jamethon Black and my sister in that moment in the library had pointed me the way I wanted. My new perception was beginning to harden in me. I had begun to evolve techniques to put it to work to manipulate people, as I had manipulated Eileen, to gain what I wanted; and already I was hot on the road to my personal goal of power and freedom.

  Chapter 5

  Yet, it turned out that the scene in the library was to stick in my mind like a burr, after all.

  For five years, while I climbed through the ranks of the News Service like a man born to succeed, I had no word from Eileen. She still did not write Mathias; and she did not write me. The few letters I wrote her went unanswered. I knew many people, but I could not say I had any friends-and Mathias was nothing. Distantly, in one corner of me, I became slowly aware that I was alone in the world; and that in the first feverish flush of my discovered ability for manipulating people I might well have chosen a different target than the one person on sixteen worlds who might have had some reason to love me.

  It was this, five years later, that brought me to a hillside on New Earth, recently torn up by heavy artillery. I was walking down it, for the hillside was part of a battlefield occupied only a few hours since by the mutually engaged forces of the North and South Partitions of Altland, New Earth. The military both of the North and the South consisted of only a nucleus of native forces. That of the rebellious North was over eighty percent of mercenary Commands, hired from the Friendlies. That of the South was more than sixty-five percent of Cassidan levies, hired on contractual balance by the New Earth authorities from Cassida- and it was this latter fact that had me picking my way down among the torn earth and exploded tree trunks on the hillside. Among the levies in this particular command was a young Groupman named Dave Hall-the man my sister had married on Cassida.

  My guide was a foot soldier of the loyal, or South Partition Forces. Not a Cassidan but a native New Earthman, a cadreman-runner. He was a skinny individual, in his thirties and naturally sour-minded- as I gathered from the secret pleasure he seemed to take in getting my city boots and Newsman's cloak dirtied up in the earth and underbrush. Now, five years after my moment at the Final Encyclopedia, my personal skills had begun to harden in me, and by taking a few minutes out, I could have entirely rebuilt his opinion of me. But it was not worth it.

  He brought me at last to a small message center at the foot of the hill, and turned me over to a heavy-jawed officer in his forties, with dark circles under his eyes. The officer was overage for such a field command and the fatigues of middle age were showing. Moreover, the grim Friendly legions had lately been having a good deal of pleasure with the half-trained Cassidan levies opposing them. It was small wonder he looked on me as sourly as had my guide. Only, in the Commander's case his attitude posed a problem. I would have to change it to get what I was after. And the rub in changing it was that I had come out practically without data concerning this man. But there had been rumors of a new Friendly push and as time was short I had come here on the spur of the moment. I would have to make up my arguments as I went.

  "Commandant Hal Frane!" He introduced himself without waiting for me to speak, and held out a square, somewhat dirty hand brusquely. ' 'Your papers!''

  I produced them. He looked them over with no softening of expression. "Oh?" he said. "Probationary?"

  The question was tantamount to an insult. It was none of his business whether I was a full-fledged member of the Newsman's Guild, or still on trial as an Apprentice. The point he was making implied that I was probably still so wet behind the ears that I would be a potential danger to him and his men, up here in the front lines.

  However, if he had only known it, by that question he had not so much attacked a soft spot in my own personal defenses, as revealed such a spot in his own.

  ''Right,'' I said calmly, taking the papers back from him. And I improvised on the basis of what he had just given away about himself. "Now, about your promotion-"

  "Promotion!"

  He stared at me. The tone of his voice confirmed all I had deduced, one of the little ways people betray themselves by their choice of the accusations they bring to bear on others. The man who hints that you are a thief is almost sure to have a large, vulnerable area of dishonesty in his own inner self; and in this case, Frane's attempt to needle me about my status undoubtedly assumed I was sensitive where he was sensitive. This attempt to insult, coupled with the fact that he was overage for the rank he held, indicated that he had been passed over at least once for promotion, and was vulnerable on the subject.

  It was an opening wedge only-but all I needed, now, after five years of practicing my skills on people's minds.

  "Aren't you up for promotion to Major?" I asked. "I thought-" I broke off abruptly, and grinned at him. "My mistake, I guess. I must have mixed you up with somebody else." I changed the subject, looking around the hillside. ' 'I see you and your people had a rough time here, earlier today."

  He broke in on me.

  "Where'd you hear I'd been promoted?" he demanded, scowling at me. I saw it was time to apply
a touch of the lash.

  "Why, I don't think I remember, Commandant," I said, looking squarely back at him. I paused a minute to let that sink in. "And if I did, I don't suppose I'd be free to tell you. A Newsman's sources are privileged-they have to be, in my business. Just as the military has to have its secrecy."

  That brought him to heel. Suddenly he was reminded that I was not one of his infantrymen. He had no authority to order me to tell him anything I didn't wish to tell him. I was a case calling for the velvet glove rather than the iron fist, if he wanted to get anything from me.

  "Yes," he said, struggling to make the transition from scowling to smiling as gracefully as possible.

  "Yes, of course. You've got to forgive me. We've been under fire a lot here."

  "I can see that," I said more sympathetically. "Of course, that's not the sort of thing that leaves your nerves lying limp and easy.''

  "No." He managed a smile. "You-can't tell me anything about any promotion affecting me, then?"

  "I'm afraid not," I said. Our eyes met again. And held.

  "I see." He looked away, a little sourly. "Well, what can we do for you, Newsman?"

  "Why, you can tell me about yourself," I answered. "I'd like to get some background on you."

  He faced back at me suddenly.

  "Me?" he said, staring.

  "Why, yes," I said. "Just a notion of mine. A human-interest story-the campaign as seen from the viewpoint of one of the experienced officers in the field. You know."

  He knew. I thought he did. I could see the light coming back into his eyes, and all but see the wheels turning in the back of his mind. We were at the point where a man of clear conscience would have once again demanded-"Why me, for a human-interest story, instead of some other officer of higher rank or more decorations?"

  But Frane was not about to ask it. He thought he knew why him. His own buried hopes had led him to put two and two together to get what he thought was four. He was thinking that he must indeed be up for a promotion-a battlefield promotion. Somehow, although he could not right now think why, his recent conduct in the field must have put him in line for an extra grade in rank; and I was out here to make my human-interest story out of that. Being nothing but a civilian, he was reasoning, it would not have occurred to me that he, himself, might not yet have heard of the pending promotion; and my ignorance had caused me thoughtlessly to spill the beans on first meeting him.