Dorsai! cc-1

by Gordon R. Dickson

  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 oddness; hiding it well from others, but accepting it to himself for the sake of the tool it placed in his hands. Now, this information Ian 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, “Galt’ll need help. Get me some figures on available strength, will you Ian?”

  Ian 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 Ian entered, but the sight of his uncle had initiated a new train of thought. Ian seemed well, these days — or at least as well as could be expected. It did not matter that he lived a solitary life, had little to do with the other 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 Ian. 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 — Ian 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 it off.’ To his unconscious, the Ian-Kensie gestalt holds the Ian 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 Ian, 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, Donal’s 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, Galt’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 Galt, 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 Galt, 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 Galt.

  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 Galt, Marshal, Freiland.

  Donal nodded to himself. But he did not spring immediately into action. Where Galt 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 republica
n 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.

  This, then, was the background for the inevitable conflict that had been shaping up now for fifty years between two essentially different systems of controlling what was essentially the lifeblood of the human race — its skilled minds. In fact, thought Donal, standing by the open wall — the conflict was here, and now. It had already been under way that day he had stepped aboard the ship on which he was to meet Galt, and William, and Anea, the Select of Kultis. Behind the scenes, the build-up for a final battle had been already begun, and his own role in that battle, ready and waiting for him.

  He went over to his desk and pressed a stud, speaking into a grille.

  “I want all Chiefs of Staff here immediately,”-he said. “For a top-level conference.”

  He took his finger from the stud and sat down at the desk. There was a great deal to be done.

  Protector II

  Arriving at Holmstead the capital city of Venus five days later, Donal went immediately to a conference with Galt in the latter’s suite of rooms at Government Hotel.

  “There were things to take care of,” he said, shaking hands with the older man and sitting down, “or I’d have been here sooner.” He examined Galt. “You’re looking tired.”

  The Marshal of Freiland had indeed lost weight. The skin of his face sagged a little on the massive bones, and his eyes were darkened with fatigue.

  “Politics — politics—” answered Galt. “Not my line at all. It wears a man down. Drink?”

  “No thanks,” said Donal.

  “Don’t care for one myself,” Galt said. “I’ll just light my pipe… you don’t mind?”

  “I never did before. And,” said Donal, “you never asked me before.”

  “Heh… no,” Galt gave vent to something halfway between a cough and a chuckle; and, getting out his pipe, began to fill it with fingers that trembled a little. “Damned tired, that’s all. In fact I’m ready to retire — but how can a man quit just when all hell’s popping? You got my message — how many field units can you let me have?”

  “A couple and some odds and ends. Say twenty thousand of first-line troops—” Galt’s head came up. “Don’t worry,” Donal smiled. “They will be moved in by small, clumsy stages to give the impression I’m letting you have five times that number, but the procedure’s a little fouled up in getting them actually transferred.”

  Galt grunted.

  “I might’ve known you’d think of something,” he said. “We can use that mind of yours here, at the main Conference. Officially, we’re gathered here just to agree on a common attitude to the new government on New Earth — but you know what’s really on the fire, don’t you?”

  “I can guess,” said Donal. “The open market.”

  “Right.” Galt got his pipe alight; and puffed on it gratefully. “The split’s right down the middle, now that New Earth’s in the Venus Group’s camp and we — Freiland, that is — are clear over on the nonmar-ket side by way of reaction. We’re in fair enough Strength counting heads as we sit around the table; but that’s not the problem. They’ve got William — and that white-haired devil Blaine.” He looked sharply over at Donal. “You know Project Blame, don’t you?”

  “I’ve never met him. This is my first trip to Venus,” said Donal.

  “There’s a shark,” said Galt with feeling. “I’d like to see him and William lock horns on something. Maybe they’d chew each other up and improve the universe. Well… about your status here—”

  “Officially I’m sent by Sayona the Bond as an observer.”

  “Well, that’s no problem then. We can easily get you invited to step from observer to delegate status. In fact, I’ve already passed the word. We were just waiting for you to arrive.” Galt blew a large cloud of smoke and squinted at Donal through it. “But how about it, Donal? I trust that insight of yours. What’s really in the wind here at the Conference?”

  “I’m not sure,” answered Donal. “It’s my belief somebody made a mistake.”

  “A mistake?”

  “New Earth,” explained Donal. “It was a fool’s trick to overthrow the government there right now — and by force, at that. Which is why I believe we’ll be getting it back.”

  Galt sat up sharply, taking his pipe from his mouth.

  “Getting it back? You mean — the old government returned to power?” He stared at Donal. “Who’d give it back to us?”

  “William for one, I’d imagine,” said Donal. “This isn’t his way of doing things — piecemeal. But you can bet as long as he’s about returning it, he’ll exact a price for it.”

  Galt shook his head.

  “I don’t follow you,” he said.

  “William finds himself working with the Venus group right now,” Donal pointed out. “But he’s hardly out to do them a kindness. His own aims are what concerns him — and it’s those he’ll be after in the long run. In fact, if you look, I’ll bet you see two kinds of negotiations going on at this Conference. The short range, and the long range. The short range is likely to be this matter of an open market. The long range will be William’s game.”

  Galt sucked on his pipe again.

  “I don’t know,” he said, heavily. “I don’t hold any more of a brief for William than you do — but you seem to lay everything at his doorstep. Are you sure you aren’t a little overboard where the subject of him is concerned?”

  “How can anyone be sure?” confessed Donal, wryly. “I mink what I mink about William, because—” he hesitated, “If I were in his shoes, I’d be doing these things I suspect him of.” He paused. “William’s weight on our side could swing the conference into putting enough pressure on New Earth to get the old government back in power, couldn’t it?”

  “Why — of course.”

  “Well, then.” Donal shrugged. “What could be better than William setting forth a compromise solution that at one and the same time puts him in the opposite camp and conceals as well as requires a development in the situation he desires?”

  “Well — I can follow that,” said Galt, slowly. “But if that’s the case, what’s he after? What is it he’ll want?”

  Donal shook his head.

  “I’m not sure,” he said carefully. “I don’t know.”

  On that rather inconclusive note, they ended their own private talk and Galt took Donal off to meet with some of the other delegates.

  The meeting developed, as these things do, into a cocktail gathering in the lounges of the suite belonging to Project Blaine of Venus. Blaine himself, Donal was interested to discover, was a heavy, calm-looking white-haired man who showed no surface evidences
of the character Galt had implied to him.

  “Well, what do you think of him?” Galt murmured, as they left Blaine and his wife in the process of circulating around the other guests.

  “Brilliant,” said Donal. “But I hardly think someone to be afraid of.” He met Galt’s raised eyebrows with a smile. “He seems too immersed in his own point of view. I’d consider him predictable.”

  “As opposed to William?” asked Galt, in a low voice.

  “As opposed to William,” agreed Donal. “Who is not — or, not so much.”

  They had all this time been approaching William, who was seated facing them at one end of the lounge and talking to a tall slim woman whose back was to them. As Galt and Donal came up, William’s gaze went past her. “Well, Marshal!” he said, smiling. “Protector!”

  The woman turned around; and Donal found himself face to face with Anea.

  If six years had made a difference in the outward form of Donal, they had made much more in that of Anea. She was in her late twenties now, and past the last stages of that delayed adolescence of hers. She had begun now to reveal that rare beauty that would deepen with age and experience and never completely leave her, even in extreme old age. She was more developed now, than the last time Donal had seen her, more fully woman-formed and more poised. Her green eyes met Donal’s indeterminate ones across mere centimeters of distance.

  “Honored to see you again,” said Donal, inclining his head.

  “The honor is mine.” Her voice, like the rest of her, had matured. Donal looked past her to William. “Prince!” he said.

  William stood up and shook hands, both with Donal and with Galt.

  “Honored to have you with us, Protector,” he said cheerfully to Donal. “I understand the marshal’s proposing you for delegate. You can count on me.”

  “That’s good of you,” answered Donal.

  “It’s good for me,” said William. “I like open minds around the Conference table and young minds — no offense, Hendrik — are generally open minds.”