“Prepare to retreat,” ordered Donal — and, at that moment, the man facing him turned his head to look past at something behind Donal. Donal turned about.
Pounding out of the ruined village, hand gun in his fist, was Commandant Killien.
In silence, not moving, the surviving soldiers of the Command watched him race up to him. He checked at their stare; and his eyes swung about to focus on Donal. He dropped to a walk and strode up to within a few meters of the younger officer.
“Well, Force-Leader!” he snapped. “What happened? Report?”
Donal did not answer him directly. He raised his hand and pointed to Hugh; and spoke to two of the enlisted men standing by.
“Soldiers,” he said. “Arrest that man. And hold him for immediate trial under Article Four of the Mercenaries Code.”
Veteran
Directly after getting into the city, with his canceled contract stiff in his pocket, and cleaning up in his hotel room, Donal went down two flights to pay his visit to Marshal Hendrik Galt. He found him in, and concluded certain business with him before leaving to pay his second call at a different hotel across the city.
In spite of himself, he felt a certain weakness in the knees as he announced his presence to the doorbot. It was a weakness most men would have excused him. William, Prince of Ceta, was someone few persons would have cared to beard in his own den; and Donal, in spite of what he had just experienced, was still a young — a very young — man. However, the doorbot invited him in, and summoning up his calmest expression, Donal strode into the suite.
William was, as the last time Donal had seen him, busy at his desk. This was no affectation on William’s part, as a good many people between the stars could testify. Seldom has one individual accomplished in a single day what William accomplished in the way of business, daily, as a matter of routine. Donal walked up to the desk and nodded his greeting.
William looked up at him. “I’m amazed to see you,” he said.
“Are you, sir?” said Donal. William considered him in silence for perhaps half a minute.
“It’s not often I make mistakes,” he said. “Perhaps I can console myself with the thought that when I do they turn out to be on the same order of magnitude as my successes. What inhuman kind of armor are you wearing, young man, that leads you to trust yourself in my presence, again?”
“Possibly the armor of public opinion,” replied Donal. “I’ve been in the public eye, recently. I have something of a name, nowadays.”
“Yes,” said William. “I know that type of armor from personal experience, myself.”
“And then,” said Donal, “you did send for me.”
“Yes.” And then, without warning, William’s face underwent a change to an expression of such savagery as Donal had never seen before. “How dare you!” snarled the older man, viciously. “How dare you!”
“Sir,” said Donal, wooden-faced, “I had no alternative.”
“No alternative! You come to me and have the effrontery to say — no alternative?”
“Yes, sir,” said Donal.
William rose in swift and lithe motion. He stalked around the desk to stand face to face, his eyes up-tilted a little to bore into the eyes of this tall young Dorsai.
“I took you on to follow my orders, nothing else!” he said icily. “And you — grandstand hero that you are — wreck everything.”
“Sir?”
“Yes — ‘sir’. You backwoods moron! You imbecile. Who told you to interfere with Hugh Killien? Who told you to take any action about him?”
“Sir,” said Donal. “I had no choice.”
“No choice? How — no choice?”
“My command was a command of mercenaries,” answered Donal, without moving a muscle. “Commandant Killien had given his assurance in accordance with the Mercenaries Code. Not only had his assurance proved false, he himself had neglected his command while in the field and in enemy territory. Indirectly, he had been responsible for the death of over half his men. As ranking field officer present, I had no choice but to arrest him and hold him for trial.”
“A trial held on the spot?”
“It is the code, sir,” said Donal. He paused. “I regret it was necessary to shoot him. The court-martial left me no alternative.”
“Again!” said William. “No alternative! Graeme, the space between the stars does not go to men who can find no alternatives!” He turned about abruptly, walked back around his desk and sat down.
“All right,” he said coldly but with all the passion gone, “get out of here.” Donal turned and walked toward the door as William picked up a paper from before him. “Leave your address with my doorbot,” said William. “I’ll find some kind of a post for you on some other world.”
“I regret, sir—” said Donal.
William looked up.
“It didn’t occur to me that you would have any further need of me. Marshal Galt has already found me another post.”
William continued to look at him for a long moment. His eyes were as cold as the eyes of a basilisk.
“I see,” he said at last, slowly. “Well, Graeme, perhaps we shall have something to do with each other in the future.”
“I’ll hope we will,” said Donal. He went out. But, even after he had closed the door behind him, he thought he could feel William’s eyes still coming at him through all the thickness of its panel.
He had yet one more call to make, before his duty on this world was done. He checked the directory out in the corridor and went down a flight.
The doorbot invited him in; and ArDell Montor, as large and untidy as ever, with his eyes only slightly blurred from drink, met him halfway to the entrance. “You!” said ArDell, when Donal explained what it was he wanted. “She won’t see you” He hunched his heavy shoulders, looking at Donal; and for a second his eyes cleared. Something sad and kind looked out of them, to be replaced with bitter humor. “But the old fox won’t like it. I’ll ask her.”
“Tell her it’s about something she needs to know,” said Donal.
“I’ll do that. Wait here,” Ardell went out the door.
He returned in some fifteen minutes.
“You’re to go up,” he said. “Suite 1890.” Donal turned toward the door. “I don’t suppose,” said the Newtonian, almost wistfully, “I’ll be seeing you again.”
“Why, we may meet,” answered Donal.
“Yes,” said ArDell. He stared at Donal penetratingly. “We may at that. We may at that.”
Donal went out and up to Suite 1890. The doorbot let him in. Anea was waiting for him, slim and rigid in one of her high-collared, long dresses of blue.
“Well?” she said. Donal considered her almost sorrowfully.
“You really hate me, don’t you?” he said.
“You killed him!” she blazed.
“Oh, of course.” In spite of himself, the exasperation she was always so capable of tapping in him rose to the surface. “I had to — for your own good.”
“For my good!”
He reached into his tunic pocket and withdrew a small telltale. But it was unlighted. For a wonder this apartment was unbugged. And then he thought — of course, I keep forgetting who she is.
“Listen to me,” he said. “You’ve been beautifully equipped by gene selection and training to be a Select — but not to be anything else. Why can’t you understand that interstellar intrigue isn’t your dish?”
“Interstellar… what’re you talking about?” she demanded.
“Oh, climb down for a moment,” he said wearily — and more youngly man he had said anything since leaving home. “William is your enemy. You understand that much; but you don’t understand why or how, although you think you do. And neither do I,” he confessed, “although I’ve got a notion. But the way for you to confound William isn’t by playing his game. Play your own. Be the Select of Kultis. As the Select, you’re untouchable.”
“If,” she said, “you’ve nothing more to say than that—�
��
“All right,” he took a step toward her. “Listen, then. William was making an attempt to compromise you. Killien was his tool—”
“How dare you?” she erupted.
“How dare I?” he echoed wearily. “Is there anyone in this interstellar community of madmen and madwomen who doesn’t know that phrase and use it to me on sight? I dare because it’s the truth.”
“Hugh,” she stormed at him, “was a fine, honest man. A soldier and a gentleman! Not a… a—”
“Mercenary?” he inquired. “But he was.”
“He was a career officer,” she replied haughtily. “There’s a difference.”
“No difference.” He shook his head. “But you wouldn’t understand that. Mercenary isn’t necessarily the dirty word somebody taught you it is. Never mind. Hugh Killien was worse than any name you might be mistaken enough to call me. He was a fool.”
“Oh!” she whirled about.
He took her by one elbow and turned her around. She came about in shocked surprise. Somehow, it had never occurred to her to imagine how strong he was. Now, the sudden realization of her physical helplessness in his hands shocked her into abrupt and unusual silence.
“Listen to the truth, then,” he said. “William dangled you like an expensive prize before Killien’s eyes. He fed him full of the foolish hope that he could have you — the Select of Kultis. He made it possible for you to visit Hugh that night at Faith Will Succour — yes,” he said, at her gasp, “I know about that. I saw you there with him. He also made sure Hugh would meet you, just as he made sure that the Orthodox soldiers would attack.”
“I don’t believe it—” she managed.
“Don’t you be a fool, too,” Donal said, roughly. “How else do you think an overwhelming force of Orthodox elite troops happened to move in on the encampment at just the proper time? What other men than fanatic Orthodox soldiery could be counted on to make sure none of the men in our unit escaped alive? There was supposed to be only one man to escape from that affair — Hugh Killien, who would be in a position then to make a hero’s claim on you. You see how much your good opinion is worth?”
“Hugh wouldn’t—”
“Hugh didn’t,” interrupted Donal. “As I said, he was a fool, A fool but a good soldier. Nothing more was needed for William. He knew Hugh would be fool enough to go and meet you, and good soldier enough not to throw his life away when he saw his command was destroyed. As I say, he would have come back alone — and a hero.”
“But you saw through this!” she snapped. “What’s your secret? A pipeline to the Orthodox camp?”
“Surely it was obvious from the situation; a command exposed, a commandant foolishly making a love-tryst in a battleground, that something like the attack was inevitable. I simply asked myself what kind of troops would be used and how they might be detected. Orthodox troops eat nothing but native herbs, cooked in the native fashion. The odor of their cooking permeates their clothing. Any veteran of a Harmony campaign would be able to recognize their presence the same way.”
“If his nose was sensitive enough. If he knew where to look for them—”
“There was only one logical spot—”
“Anyway,” she said coldly. “This is beside the point. The point is” — suddenly she fired up before him — “Hugh wasn’t guilty. You said it yourself. He was, even according to you, only a fool! And you had him murdered!”
He sighed in weariness.
“The crime,” he said, “for which Commandant Killien was executed was that of misleading his men and abandoning them in enemy territory. It was that he paid with his life for.”
“Murderer!” she said. “Get out!”
“But,” he said, staring baffledly at her, “I’ve just explained.”
“You’ve explained nothing,” she said, coldly, and from a distance. “I’ve heard nothing but a mountain of lies, lies, about a man whose boots you aren’t fit to clean. Now, will you get out, or do I have to call the hotel guard?”
“You don’t believe — ?” He stared at her, wide-eyed.
“Get out.” She turned her back on him. Like a man in a daze, he turned himself and walked blindly to the door and numbly out into the corridor. Still walking, he shook his head, like a person who finds himself in a bad dream and unable to wake up.
What was this curse upon him? She had not been lying — she was not capable of doing so successfully. She had really heard his explanation and — it had meant nothing to her. It was all so obvious, so plain — the machinations of William, the stupidity of Killien. And she had not seen it when Donal pointed it out to her. She, of all people, a Select of Kultis!
Why? Why? Why?
Scourged by the devils of self-doubt and loneliness, Donal moved off down the corridor, back in the direction of Galt’s hotel.
Aide-De-Camp
They met in the office of Marshal Galt, in his Freiland home; and the enormous expanse of floor and the high vaulted ceiling dwarfed them as they stood three men around a bare desk.
“Captain Lludrow, this is my Aide, Commandant Donal Graeme,” said Galt, brusquely. “Donal, this is Russ Lludrow, Patrol Chief of my Blue Patrol.”
“Honored, sir,” said Donal, inclining his head.
“Pleased to meet you, Graeme,” answered Lludrow. He was a fairly short, compact man in his early forties, very dark of skin and eye.
“You’ll trust Donal with all staff information,” said Galt. “Now, what’s your reconnaissance and intelligence picture?”
“There’s no doubt about it, they’re planning an expeditionary landing on Oriente.” Lludrow turned toward the desk and pressed buttons on the map keyboard. The top of the desk cleared to transparency and they looked through at a non-scale map of the Sir-ian system. “Here we are,” he said, stabbing his finger at roe world of Freiland, “here’s New Earth” — his finger moved to Freiland’s sister planet — “and here’s Oriente” — his finger skipped to a smaller world inward toward me sun — “in the positions they’ll be in, relative to one another twelve days from now. You see, we’ll have the sun between the two of us and also almost between each of our worlds and Oriente. They couldn’t have picked a more favorable tactical position.”
Galt grunted, examining the map. Donal was watching Lludrow with quiet curiosity. The man’s accent betrayed him for a New Earthman, but here he was high up on the Staff of Freiland’s fighting forces. Of course, the two Sirian worlds were natural allies, being on the same side as Old Earth against the Venus-Newton-Cassida group; but simply because they were so close, there was a natural rivalry in some things, and a career officer from one of them usually did best on his home world.
“Don’t like it,” said Galt, finally. “It’s a fool stunt from what I can see. The men they land will have to wear respirators; and what the devil do they expect to do with their beachhead when they establish it? Oriente’s too close to the sun for terraforming, or we would have done it from here long ago.”
“It’s possible,” said Lludrow, calmly, “they could intend to mount an offensive from there against our two planets here.”
“No, no,” Galt’s voice was harsh and almost irritable. His heavy face loomed above the map. “That’s as wild a notion as terraforming Orients. They couldn’t keep a base there supplied, let alone using it to attack two large planets with fully established population and industry. Besides, you don’t conquer civilized worlds. That’s a maxim.”
“Maxims can become worn out, though,” put in Donal.
“What?” demanded Galt, looking up. “Oh — Donal. Don’t interrupt us now. From the looks of it,” he went on to Lludrow, “it strikes me as nothing so much as a live exercise — you know what I mean.”
Lludrow nodded — as did Donal unconsciously. Live exercises were something that no planetary Chief of Staff admitted to, but every military man recognized. They were actual small battles provoked with a handy enemy either for the purpose of putting a final edge on troops in training, or t
o keep that edge on troops that had been too long on a standby basis. Galt, almost alone among the Planetary Commanders of his time, was firmly set against this action, not only in theory, but in practice. He believed it more honest to hire his troops out, as in the recent situation on Harmony, when they showed signs of going stale. Donal privately agreed with him; although mere was always the danger that when you hired troops out, they lost the sense of belonging to you, in particular, and were sometimes spoiled through mismanagement.
“What do you think?” Galt was asking his Patrol chief.
“I don’t know, sir,” Lludrow answered. “It seems the only sensible interpretation.”
“The thing,” interrupted Donal, again, “would be to go over some of the non-sensible interpretations as well, to see if one of them doesn’t constitute a possible danger. And from that—”
“Donal,” broke in Galt, dryly, “you are my aide, not my Battle Op.”
“Still—” Donal was persisting, when the marshal cut him off in a tone of definite command.
“That will be all!”
“Yes, sir,” said Donal, subsiding.
“Then,” said Galt, turning back to Lludrow, “we’ll regard this as a heaven-sent opportunity to cut an arm or two off the fighting strength of the Newton Cassidan fleet and field force. Go back to your Patrol. I’ll send orders.”
Lludrow inclined his head and was just about to turn and go when there was an interruption — the faint swish of air from one of the big office doors sliding back, and the tap of feminine heels approaching over the polished floor. They turned to see a tall, dazzlingly beautiful woman with red hair coming at them across the office.
“Elvine!” said Galt.
“Not interrupting anything, am I?” she called, even before she came up to them. “Didn’t know you had a visitor.”
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